Manic Pixie Dream Girl

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She'll liven up your life... whether you like it or not!

"I brake for birds! I rock a lot of polka dots! I have touched glitter in the past 24 hours! I spent my entire day talking to children! And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person; that's just weird and it freaks me out! And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown! And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it slightly cuter!"

— Jessica Day, New Girl

Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life...

Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's beautiful (albeit more "cute" than "hot"), energetic, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl may be featured as the Second Love, in order to break the character out of The Mourning After. If he's a cynic, her goal may be to convince him that Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!. Finally, she may be presented as a cheerful variety of Threshold Guardian, all the way from less uptight to psychopomps happily welcoming their clients into "another adventure".

If you're wondering what exactly she's getting out of the relationship, you're not alone. The term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" was coined in 2007 by The Onion's "A.V Club" film critic Nathan Rabin, who despises this trope, believing it to be the result of Wish Fulfillment from lonely male writers. He explicitly compared it to the Magical Negro, in that a Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely to help the protagonist find happiness without having any personal goals or romantic needs of her own. Rabin would later disown the term, because instead of creating awareness of the lack of independent goals in female love interests or even just a romance cliche that's been done to death, the concept was misunderstood as a condemnation of ALL quirky and fun female characters.

Despite all that (or because of all that), there are ways of utilizing this trope without falling into that pitfall. Given enough time, Character Development can add to their personality and interests and pull them away from the MPDG foundation. The story may even be told from their perspective, revealing that there is more to them than bringing adventure to brooding guys. A MPDG with independent story arc and depth of character can even be the true main character of a work, with her companion being a hapless Drag Along recruited to assist her goals—his world-expanding adventure is incidental to her need for someone to carry the cooking pots and backup hang glider.

Deconstructions of the idea may show that they resent being considered only useful for the benefit of the main character, idolized as something that they are not, or that once the main character reaches their "enlightened" stage, the MPDG moves on to the next person who needs their help. An alternative type of deconstruction is for a character introduced like this to turn out to be dangerously unstable, tipping over into Cute and Psycho, or (more realistically) a damaged and unhealthy individual whose childishness, naivete, and irresponsibility quickly either cause them to wear out their welcome, or suck the main character into a codependent mess that can only end badly.

A subtrope of Blithe Spirit, and related to Magical Girlfriend, Loony Friends Improve Your Personality, Uptight Loves Wild, and Damsel Errant. From the girl's perspective, this trope becomes Single Woman Seeks Good Man, though whether the hero qualifies varies.

Compare Cloudcuckoolander, Genki Girl, Perky Goth, Uptight Loves Wild, Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl, Pom-Pom Girl, and Quirky Ukulele for similar personality roles. See also The Pollyanna, for when a female character adopts this attitude to her own life. May also overlap with Trickster Girlfriend if she enjoys playing tricks on the protagonist and deliberately misleading him just for the fun of it. Sometimes the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a Hyper-Competent Sidekick. Contrast Nerd Nanny and Yamato Nadeshiko for examples of calmer and more mature ladies. The Screwball Comedy is a genre driven entirely by this character type.

Although not quite Always Female, a "Manic Pixie Dream Guy" is a much rarer concept. "Manic Pixie Dream Guys", where they exist, tend to either be young (e.g., a Kid Sidekick) or immature. If the latter, expect them to learn just as much from their cynical partner as they teach (the cynic learns to enjoy life more while the immature one learns responsibility).

Often prone to a "Life Is Awesome" Speech.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Films — Live Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV

Other examples:

Comic Books

• In the Batman Confidential story "Lovers and Madmen", Harley plays this role for Jack Napier. Jack was in a rut and utterly bored with his life of crime. Harley — unaware that his "job" was career criminal — told him that it sounded like he had a gift and that he ought to embrace it. Jack takes her advice and goes to his next job which leads to his fateful encounter with Batman that turns him into the Joker. Harley doesn't quite fit the mold since she has her own issues too: she's working nightshifts as a waitress at a bar to pay her college tuition and jokingly tells Jack that if he really wanted to thank her for the advice, he can give her enough money to pay her way through college. After he becomes the Joker, he does just that. It could be argued that in most incarnations, Harley Quinn believes herself to be this to the Joker, and arguably would be if the Joker were capable of even the slightest shred of empathy.
• Black Hole (1995): Trippy artist Eliza is adorable and sweet from head to tail.
• Deconstructed in Demo when a stressed-out businessman meets one of these girls. She encourages him to unwind and enjoy himself, as they meet over meals and he occasionally lends her money. Then one day he gets suspicious, breaks into her apartment... and finds an array of recording equipment. The reason she can say what he needs to hear is because she spies on him.
• Subverted in The Diary of Molly Fredrickson: Peanut Butter. Erica has this effect on the title character sexually, with Molly going from "merely" catching her parents roleplaying in her uniform to being the Tagalong Kid in her sexual adventures. There's making out with each other in the bathroom despite no previous interest in girls, with the eponymous food, there's a threesome with her boyfriend; and so on until threesomes and orgies are natural to her, leading up to gangbanging a nun for prom. Molly then becomes this trope when she goes to college in San Diego, orchestrates/participates in more orgies and opens up Verna, whose only sexual experience was with her uncle.
• Doctor Strange: Some depictions of Strange's apprentice and lover Clea show her playing little pranks on him whenever she thinks he looks too grim and needs to smile.
• Subverted in ElfQuest. Aroree is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl to Skywise, although he barely needs one, but mostly to her tribe, which otherwise consists of very serious ancient elves. She gets broken and develops into a very mature, sad figure, sticking around in the main plot for the rest of the series.
• The Flash:
  • The modern interpretations of Iris West (former Lois Lane Expy) is this to Barry Allen (the Flash II), who is nerdy and awkward. She initially only uses him as her source within the CCPD, but does grow fond of him. In a realistic nod, she's also depicted as a caffeine addict.
  • Wally West (the Flash III) is this to his wife, Linda Park. When they first met, he was a cocky idiot and she was an uptight news reporter. As time went on, she learned to have more fun with life and he became more mature and responsible.
• Li'l Depressed Boy has one in hipster girl Jazz, who is a rather straight-up example, but also deconstructed somewhat. Initially, she helps the titular hero, LDB, out of his stupor, with her outgoing personality and general upbeat attitude. Not only that, but she gets him out of his routine, and they share a lot of the same interests... then she casually reveals that she has a boyfriend, and is just really touchy-feely with pretty much everyone and sees LDP as just a friend and has no idea of how he feels about her. Note that everyone, even random people who don't know the two, thought they were dating. LDP stops talking to her afterwards due to the awkwardness, but she, not knowing she did anything wrong, tries to maintain the friendship. It takes LDP a while to get past it, as it makes him second-guess himself in terms of relationships. Even her mannerisms are deconstructed. When LDP thought they were dating, her manicness was a good thing, since it meant things were always fun and upbeat, with the same thing applying to her touchy-feeliness. But when LDP runs into her later on with his new girlfriend Spike, her talkativeness is played up as more annoying than anything and she comes off as too touchy-feely, hugging someone she just met and all.
• Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim. She's not a completely straight example, as her personality is rather mellow and low-key, but she shakes up the main character's life, is desired by many (to the point that she has seven exes), wears very fashionable clothes, and dyes her hair blinding neon colours. She also has many of the same character flaws as Scott, which is why she has seven evil exes to begin with, and the story's about both of them maturing as people and confronting these flaws head on instead of ignoring them. If anything, she's a Deconstruction.
• Reconstructed in The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. David falls in love in a girl named Meg when she appears to literally fly out of the sky on angel wings to give him hope. The event turns out to be a flash mob prank, but Meg sincerely cares for David after hearing about his problems. While Meg resembles the trope in that she is often energetic, has many random quirks, and is devoted to David's wellbeing, she avoids the trope's pitfalls through being fleshed out. Meg has made a job for herself in helping the homeless, is not flawless, suffers from depression (made worse by not taking her medication), and has her own life with friends outside of David. This is best demonstrated in a speech she gives him towards the end of the comic, where she promises David she'll help make his name great but she wants her own name great too.
  • Much of Meg's traits that resemble MPDG quirks are actually are based on traits of McCloud's own wife Ivy. He also responded to the criticism in several interviews, mirroring Nathan Rabin's response that the problem isn't quirky female characters, it's female characters who are nothing but quirks.
    McCloud: I married the trope — what am I gonna do?
• Spider-Man: In her very first appearances, Mary Jane Watson had a lot of hallmarks of a screwball-comedy heroine (a Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a dark side) in that she was a free spirit, dashed attractive and clearly enjoyed throwing Peter Parker's life into disarray. Her darker side came into evidence e. g. when she on various occasions would flirt with Peter when he was committed to Gwen Stacy and she herself was supposed to be Harry Osborn's girlfriend. Obviously that changed after Gwen's Death. It's also worth pointing out that Peter didn't start falling for her until she dropped the act and started showing her true self.
• The Mist in Starman thinks she's this to Jack, even comparing herself to the Katharine Hepburn character in Bringing Up Baby. Jack pointed out that, unlike the Mist, Hepburn did not kill anybody.
• Squirrel Girl fits the trope, especially around Speedball whom she is determined to rescue from his self-inflicted punishment of being the brooding Anti-Hero Penance.
• Superman:
  • Modern interpretations of Lois Lane have her fill this role for Clark Kent. Her energy and fiery personality instantly catches his eye, and she often drags him along for her stories.
  • Clark is a Manic Pixie Dream Guy for Lois, whether it's as himself or as Superman. Clark is appealing as the farm boy who's new to the big city and wins her over with his kindness, dorky charm and down-to-earth nature, while Superman is appealing as the brave, altruistic, larger-than-life hero who literally sweeps her off her feet, comes to her rescue, and shows her all sorts of fantastic things. In a lot of incarnations, his small-town upbringing and idealism act as the perfect balance to Lois' streetwise cynicism.
• Another Stan Lee creation, The Wasp's Janet Van Dyne aka the Winsome Wasp, was this to Henry Pym (Ant-Man, later Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket) in the 1960s, but again with a darker edge — one thing she liked to do in an attempt to make him come out of his shell was to flirt with other Avengers.
• David Lapham's Young Liars is an entire series about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sadie and her effect on protagonist Danny's life. The trope is played with, as she is legitimately dangerous (she has absolutely no impulse control, and so has a tendency to get into fights—this is besides the Pinkerton detectives hired to hunt her down), and that the reason why she's a MPDG is that Danny shot her in the head and the bullet is destroying the moral and judgment centers of her brain, which will kill her eventually.

Comic Strips

• Bridget is like this in My Cage. Although the other main characters are generally too cynical and depressed for her to have more than a temporary effect.
  Norm: You are like dating a cartoon elf sometimes.
• In Peanuts, Sally tries to be this towards Linus, but he's quick to remind her that he is NOT her sweet babboo.
  Sally: What does he know?^note Said in a series of strips where she tries to give him a Valentine's Day card.

Fan Works

• A Darker Path: In a very weird (and somewhat murder-y) way, Atropos fills this role for a few of the characters in this Worm fanfic, specifically in that she drags them (kicking and screaming optional) into better versions of their lives, seemingly for her own amusement (while at the same time fulfilling her own aims).
  • Flechette's life begins to improve after March is taken out of the picture, then gets even better after she meets Spitfire. In the meantime, she keeps getting dragged on wacky adventures with Atropos, such as assisting to fix Damsel of Distress' powers; destroying the Simurgh; and killing Scion.
  • Theo Anders isn't too thrilled when his father is killed (mainly because he's forced to live in the same house with all the memories), but Atropos gives him words of encouragement then arranges for him to be placed with the Laborns. Later, she sets up his trigger event, which improves his life (and self-esteem) even more.
  • Panacea is wallowing in a sea of self-dislike when Atropos blackmails her into showing up to disarm Bonesaw, then offers some words of wisdom about her powers. From that moment on, her life begins to change as she experiments with her powers. It also helps that Atropos introduces her to Parian, and takes her on a few interesting adventures of her own. By the end of it, her attitudes have changed massively.
  • Cherish starts out looking for a protector, to be gained any way necessary. She ends up as a willing minion, cheerfully assisting Atropos while learning how to be the best version of herself.
  • After Damsel of Distress is rebuffed from Brockton Bay once, she assumes her chances of ever returning are nil. But then Atropos comes to her, along with a hand-picked team of specialists, to fix her power problems. Later, Atropos takes her on a wild ride to London, where Teacher improves her powers and mental health, at Atropos' behest. By now, she's living in her own apartment, and enjoying life far more than she ever did before. When Atropos calls on her for a mission to kill Scion, she doesn't even hesitate.
  • Riley. Just Riley. She starts out as Bonesaw, but once Atropos kills the rest of the Nine, she's handed over to Panacea to be disarmed of all her deadman triggers and optional extras. Then she's rebuilt into the Laborns' younger cousin, and her personality is reverted to that of Riley Grace Davis. Then she's placed into a loving, caring household with Brian as the father/big brother figure and Aisha as the big sister. And Atropos takes her on a couple of fun adventures too.
• At Gate's Edge:
  • Despite being a ghost, Edward is an inversion to Roy Mustang. Edward's presence acts as an anchoring force in Roy's life, causing him to take things more seriously, work harder, take his duties more seriously and be more honest to himself and others. When Roy falls in love with him, he reevaluates his promiscuous lifestyle and considers giving it up to be faithful to Ed.
  • Roy plays this straight to Edward. Roy shakes Edward out of his dull afterlife of haunting Roy's office and pulls him into a life of excitement, conspiracy and adventure along with helping Edward tie loose ends with his old life.
• Frozen Flame:
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Edward Elric to Alfons Heiderich. Edward majorly shook up Alfons' dull life with his determination, devil-may-care attitude and refusal to believe anything without proof and helped Alfons' rocket program take off. In fact Edward shakes up Alfons' life so much that when given the choice to go to Amestris with him, Alfons jumps at the chance without a second thought. Although the dark side of the trope is lampshaded when Alter!Hughes warns Alfons how dangerous Edward could be, so focused on his own goals that he ignores the possible fatal consequences.
  • In the same story, Alphonse Elric to Roy Mustang. Alphonse shakes Roy out of his disillusioned funk in his self-exile and gets him to live life again. Although Alphonse does this for selfish reasons: he wanted to learn Flame Alchemy from Roy, learn who his brother was from the man that loved him and learn how to seduce Edward for himself.
• The Golden Armor: Angel Beats is the Manic Pixie Mare in this My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, slowly defrosting the stone faced pegasus Comet Burst through the expedient of being the most annoying thing in his life. She fulfill all the signs of the trope, she is full of energy, never stops talking, keeps hitting on him (metaphorically and literally as well) and instead of a wild hair color (that's not very singular in the show) she's a Bat Pony, a rare breed of pony. For some reason the superiors in the Royal Guard of Equestria think it's good to keep them together, and he slowly begin the standard routine of falling in love with a Manic Pixie Girl.
• Iron Touch has a platonic example with Sara Smile, a bubbly tourist who encourages Michelle to stop living in the past and helps pull her out of her depression.
• Nymphadora Tonks of the Harry Potter series usually fills this in fanfiction. She's a clumsy metamorphmagus (meaning that she can change her appearance at will, for example she's usually seen with pink hair), who wears band t-shirts and has more humor than most of the cast. She's often paired with a character the author feels needs to loosen up (Lupin, Harry, Moody, etc.).
• Look for the Light in this My Hero Academia Fan Fic , Kiyoko Cheonmi is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of it's universe. Though she has elements of a Shrinking Violet , Kiyoko's inner monologue is nothing short than the quirky characters that forever stay embedded into one's soul.

Films — Animation

• Gender Inverted in Cats Don't Dance with Danny trying to motivate Sawyer to go after her dreams.
• Elemental (2023): Wade is a Gender Inverted example, who quite literally bursts into Ember's life and ends up snapping her out of her routine.
• The Land Before Time: the first movie has Ducky as a platonic version. When they first meet, Ducky pulls Littlefoot out of his long-standing depression (from losing his mother and being rejected by Cera) due to her cheerful, sunny disposition.
• Wyldstyle in The LEGO Movie is a satire of the MPDG. She's introduced as a quirky super-skilled Action Girl who rescues the boring average male Special, but it becomes clear that she doesn't like being in that role. She sought out the Piece of Resistance because she wanted to be the Special, her made up name and odd fashion sense come out of insecurity and trying too hard to be unique, and she thinks of Emmet as a useless Load who is not living up to his title at all. She and Emmet eventually warm up to each other, and before Emmet dies he commissions her to become the Special after him.
• The main purpose of Penny Peterson in Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and promoted as such ^note although that doesn't stop her from being an Academic Alpha Bitch at first: A Blithe Spirit taking a 360 turn on boy genius Sherman's life, leading him to do things by himself for the first time, like flying Da Vinci's prototype and falling in love. While Mr. Peabody is quite annoyed by the presence of a MPDG turning his son "into a hooligan" (which leads Sherman to call him out), this ends up being rather helpful as she helps him to come to terms with his relations with Mr. Peabody, who ends up asking their help to fix a paradox.
• In The Return of Hanuman, Hanuman reincarnates himself into a boy named Maruti. Later, he helps Minku, a poor boy who is frequently bullied by most of his classmates. It makes sense why he acts so bubbly: he's only three months old. By the end of the film, Maruti (already transformed into Hanuman) told Minku to be strong before left the village.
• Poppy in Trolls plays with the trope. She definitely fits the personality type, especially and she fills a platonic version of the plot to Bridget (who's ironically voiced by Zooey Deschanel) — convincing her to pursue the man she loves. But then again all the trolls are like that and although Poppy eventually does get the cynical Branch to liven up — she only ropes him into her scheme because she needs his help rescuing her friends. And it's Branch who ends up saving Poppy from her Despair Event Horizon.
• Ellie in Up. Interesting in that she only shows up in the prologue as Carl's beloved (deceased) wife. She is a catalyst for the movie's action, as Carl takes off for Paradise Falls in order to posthumously fulfill his promise to her.

Music

• The "flower girl" from "The Rain, the Park and Other Things" by the Cowsills; the narrator runs into her on a rainy day in the park and falls in Love at First Sight, but after they go for a walk together she seemingly vanishes, leaving him only a flower to remember her by.
• The Dead Milkmen's song "Punk Rock Girl" plays this trope enthusiastically straight, with a dweeby narrator describing a series of playfully violent encounters with an unnamed female Quincy Punk.
  We went to the Phillie Pizza Company
  And ordered some hot tea
  The waitress said "Well no
  We only have it oiced"
  So we jumped up on the table
  And shouted "anarchy"
  ...
  We got into her car
  Away we started rollin'
  I said "How much you pay for this?"
  She said "Nothing man, it's stolen"
• The girl described in the song "Her Eyes" by Pat Monahan and "Meet Virginia" with his band Train. (It seems like most of the songs written by Monahan, solo or with Train, are about describing the interests and quirks of these kind of girls. It's not hard to conclude Monahan likes this kind of girl.)
• "Lilly" by Pink Martini describes either a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or a very enthusiastic puppy dog ("Lilly comes when you stop to call her, Lilly runs when you look away, Lilly leaves kisses on your collar, Lilly-Lilly-Lilly-Lilly stay!")
• In Pick Up The Phone by Dragonette the singer stars as one of these singing to "Cherry", reminding her not to be very serious and singing about all their exploits "painting the town till it was up in smoke". Though the film clip tends to zig zagg it because in the end it's all in her mind.
• "Try It And See" by Rita Pavone is sung from the perspective of a woman trying to convince a man to let her be a Manic Pixie for him. It was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who later re-used the melody in Jesus Christ Superstar for, of all things, King Herod's gloating number.
• "Any Old Wind That Blows" by Johnny Cash (written by Dick Feller), though the narrator's feelings about the MPDG are a bit ambiguous:
  She's a butterfly in mid-July
  Who just can't wait to try her brand new wings
  On brand new things
  And she needs no rhyme or reason when she goes
  Her mind is on what lies beyond
  That wall of blue horizon, I suppose
  And heaven knows
  She'll go sailin' off on any old wind that blows
• Bessie from "Up on Cripple Creek" by The Band, who rips up winning horse racing tickets "just for a laugh" (or so the main character in the song wants us to see her as).
• "Head First" by John Waite and the Babys could be interpreted this way. The narrator isn’t sure about her at first, but he’s drawn to her more and more every time he sees her. The cover art of the album this song appears on carries the idea further: it depicts a girl wearing mismatched shoes falling backwards.
• "Miss Impossible" by Poets of the Fall appears to describe such a woman, and lampshades her paradoxical nature:
  As she is beautiful, she's unpredictable,
  Damned irresistible, is it plausible to hate her?
  She is my common sense, revels on decadence,
  But what's the difference, it's impossible to bait her.
  "A movie queen"
  "To play the scene"
  "of bringing all the good things out in me"
  "But for now, love, let's be real"
• The girl in Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca". "She'll make you live her crazy life," but the result is that "She will wear you out" and "She'll make you go insane." She's quite an experience but also dangerous.
• British Girl Group The Pipettes had this as their joint image, especially in their former incarnation as of their first album, We Are The Pipettes; the track "ABC" is the song of a girl who clearly wishes to be the manic pixie dream for a book-smart but introverted nerd.
• "Josie" by Steely Dan is about a local wild party girl returning home to everyone's delight after being away awhile.
• "Skateaway" by Dire Straits is about a mysterious carefree girl who roller skates around the city's streets in the middle of the night.
• The eponymous character in Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" from Songs of Leonard Cohen is perhaps a borderline example of this trope: she shows the narrator all the secret places around the docks, is "kinda crazy", and almost becomes a kind of mythic figure by the end of the song.
• A favorite MPDG of film and televison, Zooey Deschanel has turned her preciousness into a mildly successful music career as well, singing in the band She & Him with M. Ward.
• In Neil Diamond's "Shilo", the singer remembers inventing the eponymous Imaginary Friend as a child due to his father not having time for him and the other kids ostracizing him. As he gets older, he meets and falls for a MPDG who helps him find his confidence... then dumps him, which sends him back to longing for the imaginary friend.
• Motion City Soundtrack's song "Antonia" definitely gives this impression of the titular character. The verses are a laundry list of her numerous quirks and idiosyncrasies, while the chorus states that the singer cannot live without her. In this interview writer Justin Pierre states that there is no one girl with all of these traits, but that they were taken from many people, including but not limited to his sister and the band's male drummer.
• The video to Carly Rae Jepsen's "Run Away With Me" is pretty much a Point-of-view experience of a guy traveling around the world with Carly as his MPDG.
• Green Day occasionally has a song written about lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong's wife, Adrienne, which seems to paint her in this light-see: "She's A Rebel", "Last Of The American Girls", and "Youngblood".
• The maiden in "Ghost of a Rose" by Blackmore's Night is clearly one. She and her love eventually part ways but he always remembers her and thinks he can see her on the moors.
  Her eyes believed in mysteries.
  She would lay amongst the leaves of amber.
  Her spirit wild, heart of a child
  Yet gentle, still and quiet and mild
  And he loved her.
• Deconstructed in Lorde "Liability", the song describes how her lovers are initially attracted to the excitement of dating her and her quirks, but leaving soon after that initial passion fades and her antics become too burdensome:
  The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy
  Till all of the tricks don't work anymore
  And then they're bored of me
• Deconstructed in Addison Grace's "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", which is about the singer calling out her abusive ex for trying to turn her into this trope — a "quirky" girl who only exists to support him in all his endeavors.
• Brooks & Dunn's "Rock My World Little Country Girl" puts a Country Music twist on the trope, about a girl who "acts like Madonna, but she listens to Merle," has "an A in math, but never cracked a book," and wears Calvin Klein snakeskin boots with dime-store sunglasses. She insists the singer is too uptight and he's "got to learn to loosen up."
• The title character in Dean Friedman's 1977 hit "Ariel" (a One-Hit Wonder moment for him in the US, though he had other hits internationally) fits the trope to a T.
  She wore a peasant blouse with nothing underneath
  I said "Hi"
  She said, "Yeah, I guess I am"
• Collin Raye's "My Kind of Girl" is another Country Music version of the trope.
  When I saw you buying Cosmo and a Hot Rod magazine
  I said to myself "Now there's a girl for me."
  And when I asked you to go for a ride
  You stole my heart when you said "If I can drive."
  I said "How 'bout some music?" You said, "You got any Merle?"
  That's when I knew you were my kind of girl
• David Nail's "Whatever She's Got, another Country Music variety.
  She's a little complicated
  She'll make her mind up just to change it
  The kind of girl that keeps you waitin', waitin' around
  She likes to get her toes done bright red
  She's always reapplyin' her lipstick
  The muddy river bank she's the first in and last out
  She's got somethin' I can't figure out
  That everybody's talkin' 'bout...
• Deconstructed in "Five Colours in her Hair" by McFly. Pretty much all the singer knows about the girl is that she looks like a rebel and there are rumours about her "but she don't care", which is enough to convince him that she's "the girl I couldn't live without". When it turns out she does actually care about the rumours, blames the singer for spreading them, and drops the rebel look to get some peace, he doesn't even remember what her name is.

Mythology and Religion

• William Butler Yeats' interpretation of the Leanan Sidhe (fairy lover) takes this up to eleven, with a relationship such a literal manic pixie being doomed to end with the human lover losing his mind from exposure to the sidhe's alien ways, or have his life drained away from the sheer excitement she causes him to have. A human may die from despair, as he knows the pixie will leave him one day and he'll never find anyone like her ever again among a human population.
  
  In pre-Romantic Irish folklore, there is no recorded story of a Leanan Sidhe as the muse of a doomed artist, as the concept of an artists' muse did not exist in Gaelic culture. Neither were all relationships with a fairy necessarily doomed— while there are many legends where the relationship ends unhappily for the couple, it's seldom in a manner similar to what Yeats described.
• Mermaids tend to have this effect on fishermen in Nautical Folklore.
• The rusalka has this effect on men in Russian folklore, using charm, quirkiness and a mercurial nature to entrance men and draw them to a watery death. One such is depicted in What Songs! by Russian folk-rockers Otava Yo.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: Ovejita is probably a Manic Pixie Dream Sheep. She is always bopping Murray and dragging him off to various schools. However this could be a subversion, as Murray has always been just as energetic as Ovejita is.

Stand-Up Comedy

• Simon Amstell of Grandma's House and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, discusses and deconstructs the trope in all but name in his show Do Nothing: "I was in Paris recently with a new group of people, one of whom was a sort of kooky interesting girl, though in hindsight not that interesting. I always get fooled, I always think, Oh she seems fascinating. Is she, Simon? Or does she just have short hair? She suggests at about three in the morning that we all run up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. And I guess telling you about that now, it sounds exciting and fun, but at the time I just thought, Why would we do that?"

Theater

• The Neil Simon play Barefoot in the Park explores the relationship of Manic Pixie Dream Girl and her dull love interest; fun loving Cory flickers between trying to spice up her housewife roles and pouting that her new husband won't pay attention to her, while Paul struggles with his wife's playful nature he loves and focusing on the career he kind of needs. It's a romantic comedy but does show the MPDG Cory as childish and needing to grow up if she wants her marriage to really work. It ends with them switching roles and Cory learning to worry a little about the result of her actions.
• In Bells Are Ringing, Ella Peterson steps into and improves the lives of three clients of the telephone answering service she works for. She helps a dentist realize his ambitions to become a songwriter, makes a washed-up Brando wannabe actor stop mumbling, buy a suit and get a part, and a struggling playwright overcome his Writer's Block and, incidentally, fall in love with her.
• Subverted in the musical Cabaret: Sally tries to be a Manic Pixie for Cliff, but her determined spunky optimism and unwillingness to grow up make her ignore the threat of Nazism and drive Cliff away from her. The very dark Donmar Warehouse production played her eventually as an outright nihilistic Death Seeker.
• Carmen (1875) deconstructs this: Carmen is a Hot Gypsy Woman who seduces and enchants the lead male, Don José, with her free-spirited nature, but quickly tires of him as he proclaims his everlasting love for her. Turns out she's not so much for the forever love, and she leaves him for someone much more exciting. As a result, he kills her out of jealousy at the end of the opera.
• Marta in Company acts this way, but it's a subversion as she does not really seem to have any major effect on Bobby's life.
• Asha in Cross Road is a deconstruction in that her relationship with the protagonist, violinist Niccolo Paganini, is not at all romantic, and also in that she enters his life in pursuit of her own goals — she wants him to teach her music. She is still a Genki Girl who gets him to defrost his Jerk with a Heart of Gold facade, and helps him rediscover his love for music. However, she's also a Foil for Niccolo's contracted devil, Amduscias, who is also quite genki.
• Deconstructed as far back as Ibsen's A Doll's House, in which the heroine Nora is a (seemingly) flighty, vivacious, kooky child-woman who gradually realizes that she's been so working so hard at playing this role for her more conventional husband — even through bearing him three children — that she has never really grown up and has no idea of her true self, and that their relationship is thus only a game, not adult love. She leaves him to try and learn how to be a fully formed human being.
• Susan Hollander from Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water is borderline the definition of this trope as her only personality trait other then that she is a Satellite Love Interest for major screw-up Axel is that she is somewhat of a hippie (the fact that the show was written and set in The '60s helps).
• Marcy from I Love You Because, and the song "Coffee" is nearly an in-song definition of this trope.
• The Mrs. Hawking play series: Subverted in part four, Gilded Cages. Mrs. Hawking suggests that her husband saw her this way and that she suffered greatly from his effort to box her into that role.
• RENT: Mimi to Roger, Maureen to Joanne and Mark, and Angel to Tom. The entire Musical is basically about this trope played with in multiple ways. Of the three; Mimi and Maureen both rail against their lovers' objectifying them as such, dealing as they are with their own respective emotional turmoil. The only true essential Manic Pixie Dream Queen is Angel, not just for her lover Tom Collins but for the entire show, as her joie de vivre, boundless generosity and loving energy serve as both a model and moral compass against which every other character measures his or her own self-defeating behavior and emotional incontinence. Of course she dies in act two thus fulfilling the transient aspect of the archetype.
• Classic example: Maria in The Sound of Music. She's often overlooked as an example of the trope, because she's really trying her best to be a mature, motherly type (in addition to being a nun). There's an entire song dedicated to her MPDG tendencies, sung by the other nuns in her abbey who are frustrated with her childlike flightiness and apparent inattention to the reservation demanded of her as a nun.
• Sheherezade in Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier is a thorough subversion; since she lives in a world where magic is a real and tangible thing, her dreamy, creative life as a storyteller yields valuable knowledge rather than pointless whimsy. When she brightens Jafar's life, it's a deliberate (and skillfully clever) effort on her part rather than just her innate quirkiness, and when Jafar falls in love with her, it's because her argument for the value of magic is logical and well-reasoned enough to convince him of her worth, even if he never actually adopts her viewpoint on it.
• Wicked has a whole song about the trope, sung by Elphaba, who watches unhappily from the sidelines as Glinda effortlessly charms everyone. Gets deconstructed a bit in the second act, though.
• The titular character in the ballet La Sylphide is a childlike free spirit who snatches James's ring to spirit him away from his soon to be wed fiancee Effie. However this trope gets a brutal deconstruction. Once the sylph has James in the forest, she seems to lose interest in him or isn't mature enough to fully enjoy an adult relationship. Things get even worse when James attempts to keep the sylph with him via a magical scarf given to him by the witch Old Madge. The scarf is poisoned, the sylph's wings fall off and she dies.

Video Games

• Catherine from the Atlus puzzle game Catherine. Deconstructed, in that Catherine's a literal pixie dream girl, being a succubus who's taken on the form of the main character's ideal woman.
• Flonne from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness initially joins Laharl to see if demons are capable of love, and starts lecturing them.
• Merrill from Dragon Age II. She's quirky, innocent, endearingly awkward and clumsy and probably the most optimistic companion, nearly always cheerful and friendly. If on the friendship path, she just about hero worships Hawke and harbors an obvious crush on them. However, her character development and very concrete goals outside of Hawke (which she will accomplish with or without Hawke's help) ultimately save her from this trope.
• Final Fantasy:
  • While it tends to get de-emphasized in later works (in favor of her pure heart), Aerith from Final Fantasy VII absolutely fits the bill. Slowly defrosting the consummate and brooding mercenary Cloud, check. Hyperactive and mischevious, check. Involving the brooding boy in wacky hijinxs like crossdressing adventures and "accidentally" walking in on him, check. Re-emphasized in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
  • Rinoa in Final Fantasy VIII is a subversion: she comes off as a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl at first when she's playfully urging Squall to dance at the SeeD graduation ball, and while it soon becomes clear that she does in fact have her own problems as a member of La Résistance against the Galbadian occupation of Timber, she has much more well-meaning enthusiasm and optimism than she has the skill and experience needed to follow through with her big plans. However, she gets a rude awakening as to just how high the stakes are by the end of the first disc, and while she continues to encourage Squall to open up to her and others throughout the game, it's no longer in the manner of this trope.
  • Tidus from Final Fantasy X is a rare male protagonist example for Yuna. He came into her life out of nowhere when she's about to go on a pilgrimage that will more or less make her a glorified human sacrifice, and his cheerful and somewhat goofy outlook and his tendency to keep asking questions about parts of her culture that she just took for granted helps her grow as a person. He's also a literal dream boy.
• In Fire Emblem Fates the second-gen Kitsune, Selkie, serves as this to the more dour guys, such as Dwyer and Ignatius. She constantly tries to drag them places and get them to enjoy life.
  • Elise is an interesting case in that, while naturally an upbeat and outgoing person, there are times when it's implied that she's deliberately exaggerating these traits in order to be a soothing presence for her more jaded siblings. The trope is played a little bit straighter in her supports with Ryoma and Takumi.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: Plucky Girl Estelle is a protagonist in this role for her initially depressed and cynical Broken Bird adopted brother Joshua throughout the trilogy.
• In Namco High, Valkyrie's chirpy demeanour, rampant use of internet acronyms, and sheer joie de vivre put her into this role — coaxing Cousin to try new things, giving everything 100%, and just generally having fun with stuff. Then, at the end of her route, she has to go back to her own time and never returns, which typically kicks the player right in the feels in the process.
• Neverwinter Nights 2:
  • Depending on how you play, your character can be one of these for Casavir, or a male version for Elanee.
  • Gann can be a male one for the player in Mask of the Betrayer.
  • Neeshka seems to play this role in some parts of the main campaign.
• In Persona 3, the female protagonist has some elements of this in her relationship with Shinjiro Aragaki. It's most evident in about the eighth rank of his Social Link; having previously thrown a party for the rest of the dorm at the protagonist's instigation, he reflects on how good it felt and how he wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for her influence; by the end of the game she has given him a new lease on life, only to herself die as a result of performing a Heroic Sacrifice to stop The End of the World as We Know It.
• Amy Rose has a crush on Sonic the Hedgehog because she sees him as this, even though it's usually not reciprocated.^note except for Ship Tease moments in Sonic Unleashed In the beginning of her Sonic Adventure story, she complains about how boring her life is without him. Sonic himself fits the manic pixie type well minus the relationship: he's a free spirit constantly on the lookout for the next adventure, most of the other characters look up to him for that reason, and he convinces others to live life to the fullest. The latter is most apparent in Sonic and the Black Knight, where the villain's motives go against his life philosophy.
• Excellen Browning of Super Robot Wars Compact 2 towards her boyfriend Kyosuke Nanbu. Towards other people: slightly the same, but a different story. And yup, she also died...on the day she and Kyosuke met, in fact...but she got better. Subverted when it turns out she had severe loneliness issues herself. Presumably, Kyosuke saving her from certain death in their backstory is what caused her to embrace this trope and declare herself his quirky girlfriend.
• Tales Series:
  • Marta Lualdi of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Perhaps not the typical variation in that there are some...rather important other concerns as well, but she seems to tie just about everything back to her unrequited crush on Emil. She also works as a Deconstruction of one, as her love for Emil and attempts to better his personality only work in making Emil more annoyed. So by trying to be the girl who can change the cynical shy boy with no friends, she instead ends up driving him away and worsening their relationship. It doesn't help that until her Character Development, she doesn't acknowledge Emil's real personality and is really imposing her own heroic views onto him.
  • A supporting character variation in Tales of Graces with Pascal for Hubert. He starts out completely cold, withdrawn, and mistrustful, but by the end of the future arc Pascal has completely worn him down with her friendliness and wacky charm, and around her he's either a stammering dork, an aspiring romantic, or a knight in shining armor, depending on the context. It's a last minute subversion, though, because she has no idea about his feelings for her even once he pretty explicitly tells her he's in love with her. It's hinted she might return his feelings, but they're stuck with a Maybe Ever After.
• Violet:
  • The title character is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; she's the Player Character's quirky Australian girlfriend who has a limitless supply of pet names, makes gifts like origami trophies or custom snowglobes, is indefatigably supportive, and loves the Player Character even after he/she destroys all the aforementioned gifts in order to, among other things, shut out his/her ex-girlfriend. She both lampshades and deconstructs the trope as you continue playing and more backstory comes along: Violet admits that a lot of their problems come from the fact that she can't just be the protagonist's funny little girlfriend all the time, that she is also a real person with real hopes and desires and she's getting tired of putting her life on hold waiting for the protagonist to finish the work s/he was supposed to finish ages ago.
  • Also of note is that the character we know as "Violet" is really just the way the protagonist imagines her voice in his/her head. So it's an even bigger deconstruction, because the story focuses purely on how she's viewed, not on what she actually does.
• Shiki Misaki of The World Ends with You is a subversion: she has the job of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl: she gets Neku to begin to come out of his moody, loner shell and learn the game's Aesop about trying to connect with other people. However, she does have a number of her own problems, not the least of which is she's only pretending to be this type of character because in reality, she's just as shy and lonely as Neku.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: The only thing keeping Kay Faraday in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and its sequel from being a textbook MPDG to Miles Edgeworth is that their relationship isn't portrayed romantically, with the latter acting more like a Parental Substitute. The same can be said for Phoenix Wright's relationship with Maya Fey, or just about any assistant of the main character.
• In the Flash-based visual short story Air Pressure, a nameless young man is re-evaluating his continuing relationship with Leigh, an MPDG who came into his life a few years ago. How closely she fits this formula depends on your choices. Ultimately subverted after a couple plays through when the addiction subtext sinks in.
• Odon's wife Karen in Fleuret Blanc is less hyperactive than most examples, the narrative is similar: She came into his life when he was in a dark place, and her peaceful and spiritual outlook influenced many of his current beliefs and life decisions. She also died tragically.
• Tamie Nogi's route in Princess Evangile has her become this to Masaya. Until their trip together throughout Japan, Masaya had mostly been having an uneventful stay in Vincennes following the Premier Jugment. Her inviting him on that trip signals the change of his stay there to a far more eventful one.
• Haruka from Little Busters! seems like this on the surface, with her Genki Girl behaviour, wild antics, and propensity for pulling silly pranks and dragging Riki along for the ride. However, the trope is subverted, as it turns out Haruka does all of this very much for her own sake: namely, as a way of getting back at her straitlaced, 'perfect' twin sister Kanata who is supposed to be controlling her while at the same time proving that her own rule-free life away from her extended family from which she has been exiled is much better than her sister's under their control. It doesn't work, and as her route goes down the facade breaks down more and more, revealing the incredibly insecure, socially awkward girl underneath.
• Sentimental Graffiti: Emiru's manic-ness made her a social outcast with everyone except the protagonist.
• The Smoke Room: Gay variation of the trope with Clifford Tibbits if you choose his route. It's especially evident in "Buy A Man Some Hooch"
• Ciel starts out looking like one for Shiki in Tsukihime. It's an act; she's a Hunter of Monsters, and is trying to get close to him because she thinks he's Roa's latest host. While she actually falls for him over the course of the story, her 'real self' is somewhat less cheery.
• Subverted in Yume Miru Kusuri. Nekoko seems like a literal Manic Pixie Dream Girl, being a quirky and cheeky counterpart to the sulky, brooding male protagonist. In her route you learn that she's neither a pixie nor a dream girl, but a shy and troubled drug addict that tries to escape her dull life.

Web Animation

• RomCom Manga Chan has one in the character of Mary Toyota, who mainly exists to liven the life of dull guy Kent Honda in every story she's in, especially if Kent's previous girlfriend dumped him.

Web Comics

• Two scripts by John Allison:
  • In Scary Go Round we have nerdy Eustace Boyce (aka "The Boy") and his Perky Goth girlfriend Esther de Groot. They became a couple during a trip to Wales, which Esther had initiated relatively spontaneously.
  • The one-shot strip Cupcakes McKenzie is subtitled "Manic Pixie Dream Girl".
• Subverted in Bastard. Kyun does draw Jin out of his shell, but it's not only her who does it; Manny helps too, and it's mostly Jin himself who decides to make friends. Plus, she has her own problems to deal with, and doesn't exist only to help Jin.
• In Bobwhite, Georgia sees his girlfriend Shoshanna as someone exciting, someone who does things. Everyone else sees Shoshanna as a drug abuser whose lack of inhibition turns every conversation into a trainwreck.
• Subverted in the Ciem Webcomic Series, and also gets a Gender Flip. Denny was the Manic Pixie Man that stirred things up for Candi, allowing her to (somewhat) get over the loss of her ever-brooding (but kind-hearted) Donte.
• One strip of Critical Miss invokes the title verbatim. Twice.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Ellen invokes this trope intentionally to differentiate herself from the rather-straitlaced Elliot. Non romantic example, as she is his Opposite-Sex Clone, and they see each other as more like brother and sister. Though she tries to act much the same way with Nanase, too.
  • Grace can be like this to Tedd, especially in the "One Way Road" arc where he's gotten too wrapped up in Mad Science to the detriment of his friendships and social life.
  • Ashley seemed like an example of this at first, but in the end it was inverted and subverted. Elliot was the one who dragged her into a new world, and that turned out to be a lot more horrifying than it seemed at first, albeit not without its benefits.
• Maytag from Flipside is an unabashed hedonist and nymphomaniac who takes it upon herself to break shy people (of either gender) out of their shells. She's also an interesting variation because her outgoing personality is largely a function of her outfit; her mask persona is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for herself.
• Ghastly's Ghastly Comic:
  • Several male characters in initially thought that Freddie would be this for them. Surprise!
  • The series also has the appropriately named Kwerki, a Cloud Cuckoolander who acts like she's looking for someone to play this role for. In her more lucid moments.
• In A Girl and Her Fed, said Girl is indeed manic, and said Fed is rather unsurprisingly a stuffed shirt. However, she didn't so much break him out of his funk so much as break him out of a brainwash given by the government agency that is now likely to kill them for it at some point, as the super intelligent koala pointed out. Also, her antics were kept under control in the past by the ghost of Benjamin Franklin. It's that kind of comic.
• Girls Next Door subverts it with Jareth and Sarah, since Jareth has the Manic Pixie part down pat on his own and really needs a Canny Human Dream Girl to keep him in line.
• Played from a lesbian perspective by Winter in Girly. Interestingly, this seems to be a personality she developed purely to get Otra. Before her, she was a very cultured, dull and incredibly selfish girl. In other words, Otra played this role for Winter while having none of the personality normally involved with it.
• Roomie and Lillian from Go Get a Roomie! would seem to fit the trope, the former being promiscuous, usually drunk, and teasing everyone and the latter being solitary, sheltered, and emotionless. That said, the trope itself is in equal parts downplayed, deconstructed, and inverted. Neither Lillian nor Roomie is shown as really happy with their role, and both end up changing their lives after making friends with the other. When they become a couple, Roomie is struck with crippling anxiety that she can't live up to the person Lillian thinks she is.
• Maple from Hazard's Wake is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in her own mind. (In reality, she's more a Manic Girl with romantic delusions.)
• Homestuck:
  • Nepeta, a quirky, ship-crazy, roleplaying green-blooded troll, whose moirail, Equius is far more serious and dogmatic regarding the blood caste and acting superior to lowbloods, despite her best efforts to make him more tolerant of the lower castes. Due to how troll relationships work^note Morails are two platonic partners that do still have romantic feelings towards each other, and are described as an exclusive relationship, in which both parties protect each other and balance out their personalities to keep each other in check, theirs is not sexual.
  • Feferi, a quirky, cuttlefish-crazy, roleplaying fuchsia-blooded troll, whose moirail, Eridan is far more genocidal and dogmatic regarding the blood caste and acting more superior to low bloods, despite her best efforts to make him more tolerant of the lower castes. Subverted in that Feferi moved on from Eridan before he becomes enlightened.
  • Jane becomes this in Trickster Mode. Unlike most examples, however, this is not a good thing. Ultimately deconstructed.
• Aurora fulfills this role for Pasqualo in It Hurts!!. Where he was constantly trying to put himself down and had a terrible home life, in comes Aurora, who makes his day a little brighter and becomes what the author described as a "happy pill" for him. Then it turns out his fixation on her presence making him happy turns into an obsession, and over time the story makes it clear that she has her own wants and needs as well. That, and their coupling isn't healthy for themselves or the Earth.
• Eva in Joe vs. Elan School is a deconstruction in the same manner as Marla Singer. Joe is head over heels about her in college, but his narration notes that, in hindsight, "She was actually completely crazy, a real drug addict, and obsessed with getting into very serious and dangerous situations."
• Ménage à 3:
  • Zii fits the pattern. Irresponsible, almost always "up", and easily distracted, she has left a trail of hurt feelings and disrupted relationships behind her. Despite that, her interactions with Gary, DiDi, and Sonya have shaken them all out of assorted ruts and induced them to try something different, while Erik seems to have had something of a romantic MPDG image of her. Things get more complicated with and for her as the comic goes on, and the consequences of her manic pixie irresponsibility sometimes come back to bite her; notably, while she was only looking for a short-term fling with Sonya, Sonya has become infatuated with her.
  • Gary is something of an MPDG magnet. After Yuki has split up with him, Sonya gives him a crash course in basic sexual activity, but turns out to be more interested in pursuing Zii for MPDG services. But shortly after that relationship ends, Senna crashes through his door, tells him a series of colorful lies, and drags him off to Paris by way of the Mile-High Club. Mind you, Senna is more of a dangerously narcissistic flake than true MPDG material. Gary's big problem in all this, though, is that he's far too passive to learn any useful lessons about life and love from any of them.
• Missi from Misfile. Of course, this puts her directly between Ash and her canon love interest, leading to Missi catching a lot of flak from some fans.
• Deconstructed in this Nobody Scores! strip. Jane realizes that her new boyfriend only wants a quirky girl to show off to his friends, and hits back by adopting the "quirky whim" of respectability (including a job as an estate agent). When her boyfriend gets bored and dumps her, she reverts to her former self — but her roommate Sarah forces the two back together at gunpoint, because the "real" Jane is impossible to live with.
• Nils in Platinum Grit. Though honestly, Given all the weirdness in Jeremy's life, it's actually up to the other girl, Kate, to be the inverse of a MPDG and pull him back to reality.
• In Red String, Hanae serves this roll for Fuuko. She breaks her out of her shell and shows her that it's ok to love someone, even if she is a little different. Deconstructed when Hanae's finally outed to her mother who doesn't take this well — and it's Fuuko that has to be Hanae's pillar of support and strength.
• This Sex, Drugs, and June Cleaver◊ strip points out some of the implications of this trope, with Bree imagining herself in this role.
• Subverted in Shortpacked!, where Robin's attempts at this usually do just wind up annoying the hell out of Ethan, Amber, and whoever else she might decide to latch onto.
• Sticky Dilly Buns gender-inverts and reconstructs the trope with Dillon and Ruby. He plays the manic pixie role toward her, but aside from the fact that their relationship is entirely platonic (Dillon being very, very gay), Ruby has just as much of an effect on Dillon, making him consider the consequences of his actions more, as he does on her.

Web Original

• The unnamed POV human protagonist in Alien Abduction Roleplay is implied to be a male version. He's a Nightmare Fetishist who quickly forgives the alien scientist, Acktreal Domma, for threatening to eat him, and brings out her more gentle, empathetic side. At the end of the series, Ackt tells him that she loves him because he allows her to unleash the more playful side of herself (which she buried because her herbivorous peers react negatively to it)
• Satirized in Manic Pixie Prostitute a YouTube short commenting on the male obsession with the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' caricature and the female response to it. A middle-aged married man in a suit meets an exasperated prostitute in a hotel room. Instead of sex, he asks her to role play: "I want you to turn my life upside down with your whimsical joie de vivre," — an act she finds "demeaning."
• The parody trailer A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever includes a token Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the form of Lead Female. She helps Wealthy, Successful Protagonist to open up and enjoy his life to the fullest, though she does share that role with Inspirationally Disadvantaged Guy.
  Protagonist: Interest in your bold rejection of social norms as evidenced by your dyed hair.
• Referenced in Yahtzee's review of SimCity.
  Yahtzee: Listen to me EA: not every introvert is longing for the day that Zooey fucking Deschanel kicks their door down and forcibly drags them to a roller rink.
• Feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian discussed this trope in the first episode in her "Tropes Vs. Women" series, calling it a poor effort by Hollywood writers to create less subdominant roles for females, as it's still a character who's meant to serve the needs of the male lead. She brings up an interesting point that it's often merged with The Muse, which puts forth the idea that women can't be independent creators. But she categorise Summer of (500) Days of Summer and Clementine of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as straight examples rather than deconstructions.
• There is the State Home for Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Turns out most manic pixies need to be eventually institutionalised. Kyle's heart is breaking as he has to have his wife Katie committed. She's adorable in a quirky and awkward way... but she wanders and marvels at everything, can't feed herself (she only ever eats pancakes), wants to pay in buttons, listens to music with unplugged headphones, blows kisses to people she doesn't know etc. All the manic-pixies at the facility are similar: they all listen to The Smiths, they fight over a CD mix which to them is like catnip to cats, they talk about star-gazing, get crafty with pipe clears and dance happily in the rain. The woman in charge handling Katie's case says the Manic Pixie Dream Girl condition is still dimly understood, but she has her own theory: severe retardation of the brain.
• Subverted in Gemma and the Bear, which features a gay, platonic Manic Pixie Dream Guy. Gemma is a timid, nerdy, neurotic white woman who turns into a "carpe diem-loving, fly-by-the-seat-of his-pants" gay black man named Bear when she falls asleep. Bear has decided that he and Gemma need a man and that Gemma overall just needs some more spice in her life! Unfortunately, he mostly causes trouble and makes things even more complicated.
• Manic Pixie Dream Wife: Deconstructed. Chance met his dream girl Simone who is beautiful, gentle, quirky, lovable and a manic-pixie-dream-girl up-to-eleven. He loves her, but being married to her is exhausting... She reassures and encourages her friends and random people to follow their hearts or to keep pursuing their passions like music; people admire her ukulele skills and her singing; she likes to pretend to be an alien or a baby, she keeps throwing dinners with a theme (like an under sea dinner party for Chance and her, and their pet fish Morrissy insisted to join them, too), she loves making music mixes for her husband, she doesn't like 'dangerous chemicals' (even medicine, because pharmaceutical companies are evil), she works for a charity dressed as a dancing potted flower... and so on and so forth. She's very loving and inspiring, but Chance becomes extremely tired from her various adventures and her attempts to self-actualize him all the time, and to his horror, he starts to feel attracted to a firm, energetic and funny woman who acts like a grown-up. It turns out that Simone actually acts this way because Chance needs to be cheered up all the time, and others expect her to behave in that way, too.

Web Videos

• Played for Laughs in Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Abridged as Archer name-drops the trope and refers to Kuzuki as this for Caster, reasoning that Caster needs him to support her pursuit of happiness and in doing so he stifled her personal growth as well as his own.
  Archer: You abandoned your own pursuit of happiness, so she could be happy. You may not be manic, you may not be a pixie, you may not be a girl, but you, Soichiro Kuzuki, are a manic pixie dream girl in a suit and dress shoes.
• Gameboys: Genderflipped with Gavreel. Deconstructed in later episodes by shifting the focus from almost-completely Cairo to more equal-part Gavreel & his struggle with Cairo moving away with his family to Bukidnon.

Western Animation

• American Dad!, "Independent Movie":
  • Zooey Deschanel (of course) played one of these (explicitly referred to as such) in this episode— designed to resemble a stereotypical independent film.
    Steve: Um, hi. Uh, can I help you with your cello?
    Girl: No, it's my suitcase. I just don't think all suitcases should be rectangles, y'know? I think sometimes suitcases can be cello cases with clothes in them.
    Steve: ...What are you doing here?
    Girl: I'm travelling cross country taking Polaroid pictures of people walking other people's dogs. It's pretty hard to tell, but I didn't become an artist because it was easy.
  • Steve acts as a Manic Pixie Dream Guy for Snot by trying to get him to come to terms with his feelings about his fathers death, even though Snot doesn't think he cares about it.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender could be considered this not only to Katara, but to the entire world. This messiah's message is "have fun, not wars." He moves out of it in later seasons, to the point that halfway through season 2 he was becoming a full time grump (the wackiness by then having moved over to Toph and Sokka).
  • The Legend of Korra: Avatar Korra is a subversion, if not double-subversion from Mako's perspective as she's the protagonist that clearly has her own goals from constantly saving the world to personal issues like PTSD, (he's just a Spotlight-Stealing Squad for half the series at most,) break up for good by Book 2's end, but she otherwise turns his life upside-down and ultimately for the better as he reflects on her as remaining an inspiration in the fourth season Clip Show.
• Janet from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes tries to be this for her boyfriend Hank Pym. She's a fun-loving Genki Girl who convinces him that they could make a difference as superheroes, while Hank's a workaholic Absent-Minded Professor. However, as a result Hank often neglects her and their relationship ultimately breaks down when Hank resigns in shame after creating Ultron.
• Clone High: Mary is a direct parody of this trope. Upon being introduced, she admitted that her laugh is "manic and pixie-like" as Abe described her as his "dream girl". She would do all sorts of stereotypically weird and quirky things like enter and exit buildings and houses through windows, play a tiny tuba, and eat tuna and anchovy sandwiches. While dating Abe, her kooky behavior and off-the-wall antics livened up Abe's life, while he was going through some stuff. As it would turn out, this was all a front as her true personality was Bloody Mary and she needed to attract virgin sacrifices so she could consume their souls and live forever.
• Glitch Techs: Miko takes on this role to Five in the pilot episode: she's the one who goes out of her way to track him down and get him to investigate his Laser-Guided Amnesia, and fits the stereotypical dyed hair and personality to a T, though in later episodes she gets more independent flaws and character development.
• In Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run, Lola Bunny is this to Bugs Bunny. At the beginning, Bugs has been a disappointed cynic since a high rise was built over his rabbit hole, and all he wants is to find another hole and grump around alone. Lola, a Cloud Cuckoolander and Talkative Loon, shows him that there are better ways to live.
• In The Magic School Bus, Ms. Frizzle fits the platonic version of this trope as much as possible in order to give her students excitement in learning, and in the episode "Goes To Seed", she acts like the literal example of this trope towards Mr. Seedplot.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Cat Noir acts the part of a MPDG, as a way of coping with his abusive home life. He can become surprisingly bitter and sullen when the object of his affections refuses to play along, but eventually learns that their relationship doesn't have to be romantic to be worthwhile.
  • Ladybug is a straighter version of the trope, but only off-duty. Her manic obsessions aren't always cute or harmless, and she struggles with expressing her feelings appropriately. But if there is any hope for poor Adrien, it rests with her- there's a reason the universe has been trying to hook them up since they were 13. One reason their relationship hasn't progressed is that she prioritizes comforting him (as seen with the scarf gift that she pretended was from his father) over confessing.
• The Owl House: The irony of being the only human among a society of witches and demons aside, Luz Noceda inadvertently livens up and ultimately improves Amity Blight's life and leads to the young witch developing a crush on her.
• Ready Jet Go!: Jet is a quirky and optimistic alien kid who brightens the lives of his human friends with his kindness, positivity, and adventures in space.
• Inverted in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, while Star Butterfly does make Marco Diaz's life more interesting, the show is more about her growing as a character by toning down her chaotic overenthusiasm by being with the safety-minded, level-headed Marco.
• Gender inverted in Steven Universe, with Steven Quartz Universe as the literal magical boy bringing excitement to the life of bored, lonely Connie Maheswaran. They even have a Crash-Into Hello.
• Gender Inverted in Teen Titans with Kid Flash and Jinx.
• In We Bare Bears, the episode "Fashion Bears" has Panda meet a MPDG named Samantha who loves doing impulsive things, like picking random people up with her tandem bike and riding through car washes. Panda quickly realizes how bad her impulsivity is when she assumes him tying his shoe is a marriage proposal.
• Winx Club has a rare platonic example. Teenaged fairy Stella is overjoyed to befriend the heroine and (by way of identity fraud) quickly pulls her into magic school shenanigans. Most of Stella's Character Development is about overcoming her irresponsibility and need for attention...as much as she can, anyway. She's still a highly impulsive Genki Girl.

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