Miko

A miko (巫女), also known as a shrine maiden, is a priestess in the Shinto religion. Given the strength of Shinto in Japan and the position shrine maidens hold in it, it is no surprise that they are a common character type in anime. Straight portrayals and dramatizations are used just as frequently as a priest or nun would be in North American or European media. If a main character, she might be endowed with mystical powers in order to fight demons, hang Ofuda so that she won't have to fight the demons in the first place, receive visions, etc. Otherwise, fictional and non-fictional Miko work in shrines, often as an after-school job. Their outfits traditionally consist of red hakama (trousers) or a long red skirt, and a white haori (kimono jacket).

Miko are common in H-Games, since unlike nuns, they don't have a permanent vow of chastity; they can just take over their temple when the head priest(ess) dies or quits, or else they can quit being miko, and then they can do whatever they want. Japanese depictions of most priestesses and other low-rung religious functionaries tend to borrow from miko, including nuns.

Another reason they are common in H-Games and Fanservice-laden anime, however, is that they wear uniforms, and like many other seemingly benign and non-sexualized uniforms, the uniform itself can be a type of fetish that does not warrant a higher rating. Of course, Shinto is a little less strict about sexuality, so it isn't as sacrilegious as sexualized nuns.

Historically, a miko served as an oracle, offering prophecy in the form of a dance. In real life, most modern Miko will help out with shrine functions such as cleaning, perform ceremonial dances based on the historical versions, offer fortunes (omikuji, those little slips of paper that tell you what your luck will be like), and sell souvenirs, sometimes as a part-time job. A male miko is called a geki, a kannagi or fugeki (all are gender-neutral terms).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the Bonus Episode of Ah My Buddha the haremettes face off against a group of mikos and a group of Catholic nuns in a game show. While they themselves are often confused for mikos in the West, they are actually Buddhist nuns.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Suzu is an "ayakashi miko", but "miko" is used in the older, broader sense of "person connected to the spirits" (hence it's officially translated "ayakashi medium"). The other use of the term is acknowledged in a flashback where a previous ayakashi miko was a shrine maiden, but calls herself the shrine's "musume (daughter)".
• Blue Exorcist has Izumo Kamiki, who drives the shrine maiden motif home by fighting with twin foxes she summons from paper talismans. She actually comes from a long line of miko which ended when her mother was possessed by the Sealed Evil in a Can that her family was suppose to keep under control and tried to kill her daughters. Then the Illuminati came in...
• In Brave10, Isanami is a priestess of Izumo, a lively dancer with the specific task of protecting the Kushimitama. Or so they told her. It actually protects the world from her Superpowered Evil Side.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Kaho Mizuki, who is the daughter of a Shinto priest and works as a miko when not teaching at Sakura's school.
• Class Representative Manami Mitami from A Centaur's Life lives at a shrine and is a miko. Ironically, she's an angel.
• Miiko Tsubaki, the protagonist of Demon Love Spell, is a miko in her family's shrine despite her lack of spiritual powers. Then she does turn out to have powers, which let her become the Kid with the Leash of the powerful and hot youkai Kagura...
• Sakuyamon from Digimon Tamers. She has an alternate outfit that is the traditional miko uniform while still wearing her fox mask.
• In Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan, several miko are required as part of the Ritual, a ritual that must be held every 74 years in order to pacify a giant dragon named Mitatsu-sama so he won't destroy the surrounding area. After the D-Pilots have guided Mitatsu-sama to his "throne", the miko must perform a song and dance to put him to sleep... and then the head miko, known as the Key Girl, is sacrificed to him.
• The Elusive Samurai: Shizuku is a miko of Suwa Shrine with divine powers, such as the ability to see spirits. Tokiyuki's group makes their hideout at the Suwa Shrine for two years, where she continues to perform her shrine duties whenever she isn't on a mission with the Elusive Warriors.
• Sabrina from The Electric Tale of Pikachu is a kind and sweethearted miko who is terrorized by an evil Haunter named "The Black Fog". This is quite different from Pokémon: The Original Series, where she's a stoic and dangerous psychic who terrorized Saffron city by turning people into dolls (and had a Split Personality in the form of a Creepy Child), or Pokémon Adventures where she's an elite Team Rocket officer.
• The epitome of Mikos in the Magical Girl world: Miaka Yuuki and Yui Hongo from Fushigi Yuugi, predated by other two girls from Imperial Japan times: Takiko Okuda and Suzuno Osugi. Takiko is upgraded to Hero of Another Story in Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden, and Suzuno gets her chance in Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Ibun.
• Subverted in Future Diary, as the Miko we meet (Tsubaki Kasugano) is not only one of the Diary Holders, but a member and prisoner/Sex Slave of a Religion of Evil which didn't start as an evil cult, but was turned into such after her parents' murders. In an Alternate Universe, though, Tsubaki is the real deal and an all loving heroine.
• Miyako from Ghost Hound. At one point she even becomes the prophet for a local cult, although not entirely willingly.
• In Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE, Hinata Mukai plays this role as part of a Kyūdō ceremony. At the end of the series, she joins the rest of BUILD DiVERS on Eldora with her GBN avatar taking up something akin to the look she used in the ceremony.
• The Harukanaru Toki no Naka de franchise, like Fushigi Yuugi, is centered around two schoolgirls becoming Trapped in Another World to serve as mikos to the local deity (the Yin and Yang side of the Dragon God). They are consistently called mikos, and in the manga/anime adaptations, at least one of them (Akane) has been shown wearing a typical miko outfit at some points.
• Riza, of Hayate the Combat Butler, is a Miko, though you wouldn't be able to tell except in the chapters where they visit her home.
• Inuyasha:
  • There are several miko in both major and supporting roles, particularly Kikyou, her younger sister Kaede (also leader of her village), and Midoriko, the "creator" of the Shikon No Tama; Kagome, although not really identified as a miko prior to people in the Sengoku era simply jumping to conclusions, also has many of the powers of a miko, as a result of being Kikyou's reincarnation. There's also an evil miko, Tsubaki, who started as a normal one but was driven to evil over her jealousy against Kikyou.
  • Kagome's family does run what appears to be a traditional Shinto shrine, though Kagome doesn't seem to perform miko tasks while living there. However, Kagome is dressed as a miko at the end of the series, implying she has taken up the position now that she lives in the feudal era.
• Akimoto, Misono, Ryouko and Manabe from Jinjya no Susume, a manga that takes a more or less realistic look at running a Shinto shrine and the work Miko do.
• Kaiju Girl Caramelise: Manatsu Tomosato thinks Kuroe is this, calling her "Harugon's priestess" and assuming she has some connection to the monster on that basis. This comes up when they and Rairi visit Kaiju Island, where Manatsu ropes Kuroe into dressing in a priestess outfit in an attempt to summon Harugon.
• Miko from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War may be the least likely of the cast to do manual work, but to celebrate her birthday, official Twitter account shared a character art of Miko dressed as a miko.
• Motoko from Love Hina works as a part-time miko at a local shrine, and she usually wears the traditional miko outfit even when she isn't working there.
• Love Live!:
  • Nozomi Toujou from Love Live! works as a part-time Miko at Kanda Shrine, where Honoka, Umi and Kotori first start their fitness training to be an idol group. Kanda Shrine is in fact a real shrine, located in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo; Nozomi might be the only fictional miko whose real shrine sells merchandise of her. Being a mundane series, Nozomi doesn't have any supernatural powers, though she is fond of fortune telling.
  • Sumire Heanna from Love Live! Superstar!! lives at a shrine, and also works as a miko there.
• The Hiiragi twins in Lucky Star work as part-time miko along with their older sisters, given that their father is a Shinto priest. Unlike most other examples, the Hiiragi sisters are more based on modern mikos and have zero connection to spiritual stuff; their duties typically consist of things like ground-breaking ceremonies and managing the shrine on New Year's Day. It's easy to forget that they are actual mikos since they are all portrayed as normal girls in a slice of life comedy show.
• Micaiah Chevelle of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid is either one or simply dresses like one for her Barrier Jacket.
• Mahoro from episode 5 of Mahoromatic dresses as a miko while Suguru and his friends are ghosthunting at their school. Her rationale is just having some fun with the situation.
• Matoi and Yuma work part-time as mikos in Matoi the Sacred Slayer. It seems to be a requisite to becoming an exorcist girl.
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: In the manga, Rina sometimes fills in for the miko at a shrine devoted to a mermaid spirit.
• In Monster Musume, the main cast encounter a Kitsune who works as a miko at a shrine when they're on vacation. She uses her shapeshifting powers to put on Sentai shows, much to the annoyance of the priest who runs the shrine. Later in the series, Miia winds up getting a job at a snake shrine, where she's very popular due to being a lamia.
• Shiho Munakata from My-HiME works part-time at a Shinto shrine with her grandfather, which she and her friends visit in one episode.
• Mana Tatsumiya from Negima! Magister Negi Magi, in between the breaks she gets in her mercenary job. This apparently does not conflict with her being half-demon.
• In Otaku Elf, Elda, the titular elf is enshrined in a Shinto shrine and has a miko, Koito, to take care of her needs, force her outside for certain ceremonies, and offer up the snark when she's done something ridiculous again, which happens about once a chapter.
• Miko-chan of Otasuke Miko Miko-chan is a Magical Girl based off of shrine maidens. She is a Mascot for the Mikoshiba shrine more than anything else, helping sell official merchandise of herself to keep the place afloat.
• Yomogi Inaba from Otogi Matsuri. She can see spirits and has inherited a group of five small spirit foxes.
• Ranma ½: Ukyo Kuonji is shown as an example of the 'parttime/after-school' version in one of the late manga oneshot stories. She presumably only was there a short time or was only a 'casual' miko, as she never displayed any mystical talents during or after that story.
• While far from being an actual miko, the concept of a 'miko chanelling the gods' is stated to have been an inspiration for Rebuild of Evangelion's Mari Makinami by Word of God.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Rei "Sailor Mars" Hino is a miko at her grandfather's shrine, which amplifies her spiritual powers. Many of her attacks are Shinto-based, and in civilian form, she can drive off monsters with ofuda. Sailor Moon's creator, Naoko Takeuchi, did miko work in a shrine as a youngster and used her experience as the basis for Rei's character, making this a case of Write What You Know. In the manga Rei is very devoted to being a miko and hopes to take over management of the shrine after her grandfather retires, but in the first anime she treats it more like a part-time job.
  • In an episode of the R series of the first anime, Minako and Makoto briefly work as miko to cover up for Rei when she's busy at the School Festival. Hilarity Ensues.
• Sengoku Youko has a miko in the form of Rinzu, though how much she adheres to formal duties are up for guessing, as her adopted parent is a mountain goddess.
• Shrine of the Morning Mist features several miko who are sisters and classmates, and a fair amount of the plot revolves around said shrine. An early episode features the girls getting initiated as priestesses, with cold water baths and other rites. They also battle demons in later episodes.
• Silent Möbius: Yamigumo Nami, who wears her outfit instead of a uniform. She fights with holy water and ofuda but later acquires some more powerful weapons.
• The Simoun Sibyllae in Simoun are treated as mikos (and called that by name), although their religion is quite different from Shinto. Likewise the priestesses of the Plumbum Highlands.
• Kantarou from Tactics dresses like one, but when someone brings it up, he denies it, insisting it just happens to be read and white.
• The titular Amagami sisters from Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister all live and work at a Shinto shrine as shrine maidens. The main character Uryuu is allowed to live at the shrine, on the condition that he has to marry one of the sisters so the shrine will stay open.
• The two Magical Girls of Umi Monogatari are referred to as the "Priestess of the Sky" and "Priestess of the Sea", though only the former's transformed outfit looks like a Miko's.
• Arashi Kishuu in X/1999, raised by the mikos of the famous Ise Jingun shrine because her mother was one of them. Technically, Yuzuriha Nekoi is supposed to become a miko as well, but her grandmother preferred to send her away to school and to fulfill her destiny as a Dragon of Heaven.
• Uesato Hinata, Fujimori Mito, Aki Masuzu, Kokudo Aya are just known mikos in the Yuusha De Aru franchise. They can't fight but recieve oracles from Shinju as images and relay them to heroes for their fights against Vertexes.

Fan Works

• In the Crossover Worm/Ōkami fanfic Constellations, Taylor takes on this role as she renews the shrine she and Sunshine find in Brockton Bay.
• The Crown of Neverwinter makes Ranma one of these, as she accidentally qualified when she helped a priest to tend a shrine of Inari. Ranma thinks it's rather useless a job since the gods basically vanished from Earth, but it's hinted it might change when she comes to Faêrun, a dimension much more favorable to Divine Intervention.
• A Game of Cat and Cat: As per canon, Mina Hakuba is a miko. She uses a sacred bow traditional to mikos as a weapon, and in one conversation she gets into detail about the particular beliefs of her shrine regarding Amaterasu.
• Godzilla: New Era retells the events of Godzilla 2000 in the Heisei Saga continuity with heavy Shinto elements. The aged Hina is the miko of Odo Island, where a more archaic form of Shintoism still exists. One reoccuring debate in the story is the cast unsure if Godzilla is just a dinosaur mutated by radiation or something supernatural reacting to advances in technology. Hina is adamant there had always been a Godzilla in some form or another, maintaining a mummified claw of dinosaur at a shrine as a relic. She conducts an appeasement ritual, complete with tamagushi used, at the same time Godzilla Junior ascends to becoming the third modern Godzilla. She later explains to G-Force's Commander the concept of Godzilla being a kami representing destruction itself, meaning trying to destroy it is a hopeless endeavour.

Film

• Sansho the Bailiff: A middle-aged widow gives shelter to an exiled noblewoman who is traveling with her two children and her sole remaining servant. Only it turns out the miko is evil. The servant is murdered, the mother is handed over to procurers who force her into prostitution, and the children are sold into slavery.

Literature

• Shirayuki from Aria the Scarlet Ammo, often wears a traditional shrine maiden outfit, although she has some darker traits.
• Campione!: Yuri Mariya is officially called a "Hime-Miko" (a woman with divine ancestry that gives her spiritual powers), but she otherwise fits the trope to a T. She's worked/served as a miko for a shrine since she was a child due to inheriting magical powers, and she wears the traditional outfit while doing so.
• In The Girl from the Well, Tark's mother Yoko was a miko in her youth, and the woman in black haunting him is believed to be the ghost of another miko. Tark ends up seeking out a group of mikos to help free him from the woman in black's possession.
• Mikuru Asahina from Haruhi Suzumiya is forced to dress up as one of these at one point to exorcise some ghosts.
• Akeno from High School D×D is probably a (double?) subversion, she wears the traditional miko outfit when she uses her strongest magic and is known as the Priestess Of Lightning (in Japanese Miko is used)... but she's also a demon.
• In The Irregular at Magic High School, (most) magic isn't religious, but Tatsuya recommends that Miyuki wear a miko's outfit during the ceremony to return his full power to him. (Yes, including that.) The idea is that its simple texture and construction will keep her focused while he draws out the Pledge spell from her brain, since any sort of distraction could have really bad consequences.
• Minori in Log Horizon appears as a kannagi in this game-turned-reality series. Her powers are part of the character class, with no specific religious tenets attached.
• In Our Home's Fox Deity, Ko is the family sentinel, a miko with powers.
• In Rental Magica miko have a very limited set of abilities, but in this setting the main advantage of Shinto are purification rituals. Thus little Mikan almost exclusively provides cover, but she's very strong in this role and may be the most indispensable member of the team when they face something really nasty.
• Keiko Tatsumiya, a powerful miko wielding a naginata, is one of the protagonists of Hiroshi Aramata's fantasy novel Teito Monogatari, including its various adaptations and spinoffs Doomed Megalopolis, Babylon Tokyo and Teito Monogatari Gaiden.

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition, the third player's handbook adds the Seeker class, which seems based on Miko.
  • They are the equivalent of holy warriors of the Primal Spirits (spirit entities akin to, but separate from, the Gods and Primordials, who embody various aspects of the natural order and the real world, from blood ties to the seasons to specific creatures and places), who seek out and destroy enemies of the natural order. They use magical powers granted by the Primal Spirits and channeled through bows and throwing weapons to create all kinds of magical effects, such as causing strangling grasses and vines to suddenly erupt from where their arrow hit the ground and ensnare all nearby enemies.
  • The Seeker was originally intended to be part of a "ki" power source, but the creators realized the Unfortunate Implications in producing a set of classes that shared nothing in common but the "inspired by Asia" background, and so it was broken apart. While the Seeker became a Primal Controller, the Monk, the only other apparent survivor, became a Psionic Striker.
• In the setting provided in the Mecha Vs Kaiju RPG the intelligence branch of Japan's mecha defense force is made up entirely of Mikos. This makes some sense considering The original Kaiju was an Oni mutated by the Hiroshima bomb and samples of his DNA were used to create most of the others, and the leaders of the evil organization that control the Kaiju have Oni ancestry themselves
• Sylvan Mikorange in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, who happens to be an anthropomorphic orange Shinto priestess.

Video Games

• AkaSeka: The three spirit mediums for the three great deities, known as Miko of the Sun (太陽の巫女 taiyō no miko), Priest of the Sea (海の巫覡 umi no fugeki) and Priest of the Moon (月の巫祝 tsuki no fushuku). The latter two are a man and an animal, but all three are collectively referred to as miko.
• Maori from Arcana Heart. She has three miko sisters who fight with her, too.
• Cloche and Luca from Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica. They are not called "miko" or "shrine maiden" in the US release, but you will hear them referred as such in the Japanese version.
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow feature the love interest Mina Hakuba. She is the miko of a shrine which in 1999 conducted a ritual to permanently seal away Dracula's Castle inside an eclipse (though she was far too young to participate herself, if she was born at all). In Dawn she creates a talisman for Soma which helps keep him sane and avoid the Bad Ending.
• Nozomu Miki from Dankira!!! -Boys, be DANCING!- is a male miko.
• The Fatal Frame series has Shrine Maidens with similar, albeit darker roles.
  • From the first game, there are the Rope Shrine Maidens chosen to be sacrificed, in a rather atrocious way, in order to prevent the Hellgate from opening.
  • The second, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, has the Twin Shrine Maidens. One of them is supposed to sacrifice the other to, guess what, prevent the hellgate from opening.
  • The third, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, has four Handmaidens, also known as Pacifiers in Europe and Japan, that wear full miko attire and perform daily shrine and housekeeping activities, as well as helping and eventually impaling the Tattooed Priestess, another kind of Shrine Maidens chosen because they experienced the pain of losing a loved one. They have the pain of others tattooed in their skins and are sacrificed to prevent the Rift, an infernal force, from spilling into the dreams of the living.
  • In the fourth game, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, there are the Kanade and the Utsuwa, who perform the Rougetsu Kagura ritual to worship the lunar eclipse and summon the gate to the other world so that the souls of the deceased can pass on. Of course, things go terribly wrong, and the ritual fails. It also includes the Tsukimori Shrine Maidens.
  • The fifth installment in the series, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, focuses on the traditions of Mt. Mikami. In the past, an order of Mikos used their psychic powers to take in the final thoughts of suicide victims so they could pass peacefully. Eventually, they would exhaust their powers through absorbing so many thoughts from the dead and would be placed into a ceremonial box, and sunk beneath the lake in order to purify it. After the mountain became cursed, legend stated anyone that encountered a ghostly miko would be Driven to Suicide.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Yuna from Final Fantasy X isn't a miko, but she has a very important place at her temple and her outfit - with its plain white top, long drapey white sleeves, large bow at the back, and long, pleated skirt - is clearly based on a miko outfit.
  • Aria/Elia from Final Fantasy III is called "the miko of water" in Japanese, but is translated in English as 'the maiden of water'. The world and religion aren't especially Shinto-esque, and neither is Aria / Elia's outfit, so it's more of a Japanese rough equivalent.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The final class of Micaiah from Radiant Dawn uses the kanji for Miko in the Japanese version (though the accompanying katakana reads as "Shaman" as a Continuity Nod to Genealogy of the Holy War), though the only Miko-ish things about it are her usage of Light Magic and the color scheme being mostly white and red...
  • Fire Emblem Fates's version of the Cleric class, Shrine Maiden, is referred to as "Miko" in the Japanese version, with Princess Sakura and her potential daughter Mitama starting off as this. This carries over into one of the Shrine Maiden class' promoted classes, Priestess. Unlike the case mentioned above, the Shrine Maiden and Priestess outfits actually do resemble Miko clothing, due to both classes being exclusive to characters from the Japanese-esque nation of Hoshido.
• Kohen from Gaia Crusaders, one of the playable characters, is a miko priestess who fights using her spells.
• Katsumi from Gaia Online, who tends the Shrine at the local Wutai.
• Genshin Impact: Mikos (called shrine maidens in-game) serve the Grand Narukami Shrine, the highest point of the main island of the Japanese-themed Inazuma. The head shrine maiden is even named Yae Miko (a kitsune); she is a playable character, as well as a former miko in Kuki Shinobu who comes from a long line of shrine maidens.
• Golden Sun: Dark Dawn:
  • Princess Himi, whose default classes all have "Miko" in their names. She has the classic red and white outfit as well.
  • The previous games have two mythological-based summons that carries this image (despite how inaccurate it is to the original), Coatlicue and Ulysses.
• Chizuru and Maki Kagura from The King of Fighters are Shinto priestesses and the heiresses of a very traditional heroic clan that helps keep Orochi sealed. Since Maki is a Posthumous Character, the one doing the main work is Chizuru; in fact, Kyo can drop by her temple in KOF:KYO and she'll show up in miko robes.
• Utsuki and Kureha from Kuon, kinda. They are the daughters of the shrine, wear red and white robes, and know how to use Onmyōdō, but they are not referred to as Miko.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In Japan, the six Maidens in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures are called Mikos (Zelda is considered the seventh, but she's a princess). They're responsible for keeping the power of the Four Sword Sanctuary under control. Once freed from their captors and reunited, they help Link locate Princess Zelda (who is still captive) and then confront the Final Boss.
  • Paya fills a similar role to a Miko in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. She is the granddaughter of Impa, the religious and political leader of the Sheikah, and spends each day cleaning the hybrid temple/town hall building and tending to the prayer statues outside. She also sports Facial Markings in the shape of the Sheikah tribe's Third Eye emblem to honor her ancestry, and while she doesn't wear the traditional outfit, she does have the white-with-red-trimmings wardrobe all the Sheikah wear that faintly evokes it.
• Not a character, but Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis has a costume clearly based on the miko. Amazingly, the recipe to making this costume is in the hands of the resident Cute Ghost Girl.
• In Mega Man X DiVE, Iris gains a New Year variant dressed up in a shrine maiden kimono.
• Mousehunt has the Sacred Shrine Mouse, a mouse with a shrine maiden outfit, talismans and gohei.
• Torahime from Muramasa: The Demon Blade WAS a Miko in charge of protecting Muramasa. But she is killed before the start of he story and comes back as a horse-riding lady samurai to avenge her family.
• Ninja Gaiden has a couple of miko: Kureha, who tends the shrine that houses the Ninja Dragon Sword, and Momiji, her sister. Kureha is little more than a Disposable Woman who is barely in the game for two minutes, existing solely so that Ryu can start his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, but Momiji is a Lady of War through and through, using inherited ninjutsu skills to fight rival clans.
• Ōkamiden gives us Miko Cho, whose name should indicate that she is a Miko. Kagu also becomes one, in order to fight off King Fury.
• Overwatch has the playable hero Kiriko Kamori, who's a thematic mixture of a miko, a ninja, and a magic kitsune spirit. Her costume is a stylized, more futuristic and streetwear-like interpretation of the usual "white kimono jacket/red long skirt" outfit, and for gameplay, she wields technologically-tinged variants of Shinto charms like Paper Talismans and Suzu bells, along with the aforementioned magic kitsune which leaves behind holographic torii gates in its wake. While she isn't seen working at a shrine, she nonetheless carries a spiritual edge in being tied to her family's line of work, and is also connected to a Youkai-themed gang of vigilantes who adorn themselves in similar mixes of ancient and futuristic Japanese aesthetics.
• Phantom Breaker's Waka Kumon. She is armed with a "Fu-mantion Artifact" (a type of powerful spiritual weapon, in her case, a naginata) and is part of a long line of demon hunters who have been charged with taking down an entity named "Phantom."
• Sacred Earth - Alternative: Konoe has a shrine maiden aesthetic and fights using a Gohei. In the main menu, her class is listed as Priestess. According to the Storyteller, Konoe ,or rather, the original Konoe, served as a priestess who communicated with a god.
• In Sakura Wars (2019), Hatsuho Shinonome is not only a member of the Imperial Combat Revue, but she's also the resident shrine maiden of the Shinonome Shrine in Tokyo. In addition, her regular attire consists of a red hakama and a white haori, but it doesn't cover up her cleavage.
• Mizuki Rashojin from the second Samurai Shodown is a rare villainous Miko, who uses her gohei as a sharp weapon and has a demonic Canine Companion to assist in the fight. However if she's beaten by Kyoshiro, it turns out that rather than killing her, Kyoshiro exorcised her from her host Bizuki, a genuinely kind miko who fell victim to Demonic Possession that took place when a purification ritual she performed didn't go as planned.
• A miko with mystical powers named Eri was supposed to be added to the Maiden Shrine area of The Secret World, but the devs never got around to it. The in-game lore characters still talk about her though, and she's mentioned as living in the shrine, performing rituals of purification and divination and kagura dances.
• Koyori, the Series Mascot of Sengoku Ace is a miko that uses the typical attire... with some liberties, as using a Navel-Deep Neckline to stand out her "atributes" and aviator goggles over her hair. Apart of that, she attacks with seals and even has a Mon she summons in at least one of the games.
• Spiritual Assassin Taromaru have hostile miko enemies in the temple levels, where they're dressed in classic red-and-white miko robes and carries a gohei that they use to launch energy blasts on you.
• The title of "Chosen of Mana" in Tales of Symphonia is "Miko" in the original Japanese. The position has religious connotations, although it's more of a Crystal Dragon Jesus religion than anything to do with Shinto.
• Touhou Project:
  • Reimu Hakurei and Sanae Kochiya, both of whom wear somewhat non-traditional, heavily customized miko outfits^note Reimu's was more traditional-looking in the PC-98 era, and gradually acquired various frills and other modifications between the early PC games; while Reimu's outfit at least keeps the traditional red and white color scheme, Sanae wears blue and white. Fanon tends to pit them against each other, as they both need people to visit their shrines (Reimu needs offerings, Sanae needs faith). Not to be confused with the final boss of Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires, whose name is Miko (the kanji for that name translating to either "saint" or "divine child") but isn't actually a miko herself.
  • The fanmade-but-generally-accepted-as-real character known only as Sendai Hakurei no Miko ("The previous generation's Hakurei shrine maiden") is a miko wearing the same style of clothes as Reimu and often portrayed as Reimu's mother, but is a physical powerhouse on par with Yuugi.
• Touken Ranbu: Ishikirimaru and Tarōtachi, with the latter's internal affairs outfit, which consists of hakama and a gohei, evoking this trope.
• Nanami from Valkyrie Profile. Hey, if vampires are running around in Norse mythology, why not mikos? Nanami takes a really wrong turn in the afterlife and ends up in Valhalla.

Visual Novels

• Rika Furude in Higurashi: When They Cry is a shrine maiden for a slightly peculiar branch of Shinto that includes simulated disembowelment and cannibalism in its ceremonies. For those who believe in Shinto, which places a great deal of emphasis on purity and not touching dead things, this is beyond blasphemy.
• NekoMiko: Ayame and Kaede are Cat Girl Miko priestesses who reside at Nekofuku shrine. When they fail to purge the Player Character of his bad luck, they decide to move in with him until it's been completely expunged from him.
• Genderflipped in Shall We date?: Ninja Shadow, where the Shinto Sexy Priest Asagi is one of the bifauxnen Player Character's companions and prospect love interests.
• Luka Urushibara of Steins;Gate works at her family's shrine and dresses in the traditional manner. She is transgender and when she's able to use time travel to cross into a world line where she is a cis woman; though later the consequences of the timeline alterations require them to be undone.
• Itsuki in Suika, though eventually she realizes that there's no way she could be since she doesn't do the rituals and doesn't remember becoming one. She has been Dead All Along.

Web Animation

• Sakura Miko from hololive. Her original description is that she was a friendly, if lazy, shrine maiden who was sent by the Virtual Gods to our world to become an idol, and through that would learn about the popular culture to enrich the realm she came from. Overtime though, she would faze out of that and became a Womanchild.
• Manga Room: Hana works as a shrine maiden despite being a delinquent.
• Mystery Skulls Animated: Vivi's paternal grandmother is a small old woman who wears blue hakama with a white haori and carries a shakujo.
• It turns out Vet-san from Neko Sugar Girls is also a shrine maiden. She does a Transformation Sequence to change from being a Hospital Hottie to being a miko.

Webcomics

• Masako in Beneath the Clouds, is an assistant to a Buddhist priest who performs exorcisms. She dresses like a miko, as it's similar to Heian period casual clothing.

---