A new Expy Trope? Red hair + princess + fire magic + love interest

"isn't Asuka Langley Sohyru basically an example?"

The YKTTW calls for the character to be a princess, so no.

To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."

Asuka is the current page image for Fiery Redhead. Elsewhere on the wiki it's stated that Asuka invented the "half-twintails" hair style and its symbolism. She's also strongly associated with the color red in general.

Asuka is the daughter of a prominent scientist from a foreign land, raised as an Eva pilot from a young age, and frequently boasts of her elite status and culturedness compared to the other pilots. She's constantly competing with the protagonist.

Asuka has the highest sync ratio of the Eva pilots (giving her the most raw power), and can perform "magic" that the others can't, in the form of throwing her AT Field at things to damage them (normally they can only be used defensively). She also fights like a berserker. In at least one Alternate Continuity her Eva wields a BFS that can be used as a conduit for her AT Field.

Asuka is the love interest that Shinji ends up with (sort of), and the thing about a blue-haired rival is a definite check.

Optional stuff:

She's still pretty chilly, but she does defrost.

Not directly applicable, but the way she wears her hair interface clip things at all times is supposed to call to mind the horns of a female oni.

I can't remember if this ever happens, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did. Everyone has an "Xth Child" title though, which usually takes precedence. Apparently there's an Alternate Universe version of her with the title "Crimson A1".

Very much so. Fluent in three languages, already has a college degree at the age of 14, and is considered the most skilled of the pilots.

She's forced to move in with Shinji and fight and train alongside him, and there's that famous episode where they have to start living and breathing in perfect sync to defeat an enemy.

There are some differences in what constitutes "fanservice" and "large breasts" nowadays, but I'd say she still fits.

edited 21st Oct '15 2:11:39 PM by Prime32

No kidding, the princess thing is just not this trope. It is often that the main girl ends up being a princess in general, only cause they look like good Love Interests via Marrying Up.

So many of these do not use fire at all as well, those that do would fit under a Hair Color Matches Element trope and those who do use fire and have a Fiery personality would be under a Personality Powers and Hair Color Equals Personality trope.

Hair Color Equals Personality is a trope.

• Red is the color of Fiery personalities, almost always Tsundere unless they are the Red-Headed Hero
• Blue hair are the calm smart types,
• Green is used for showing they are 'different' physically and/or mentally,
• black and dark brown in works with a full spectrum are 'normal' The Generic Guy normal.
• Purple is borderline it's use for people who are different and Shiny Midnight Black where purple, blue, and gray are used in place of black due to anime's Black Lined style on Black hair just leaves a blob.

This is in addition to Phenotype Stereotype.

Ok what happened to Shiny Midnight Black?

edited 21st Oct '15 2:44:58 PM by Memers

It seems to me that rather than a trope this is a set of characters that happen to have the same common light-novel main heroine tropes at the same time. They combine nicely to make a compelling character, which is probably why they're used together so frequently.

Yatorishino Igsem from Tenkyou No Alderamin would be another example: Main Heroine and implicit love interest, red hair, fire-type "powers", Vitriolic Best Buds with the hero, daughter of a leading noble family, etc.

Ayano Kannagi from Kaze No Stigma may be the oldest one I can think of: Tsundere, fire powers, red-hair, main heroine, heir of a powerful family, etc.

Not to mention that she has been nicknamed as "princess" in 3.33 and was once associated with the tarot card of the Empress.

edited 23rd Oct '15 1:23:21 PM by raziel365

Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, maybe we should try to find the absolutes that tie us.

Asuka seems like an Ur-Example. I did notice that she had a lot of similarities, but I feel the spree of these characters started way after NGE came out. Before the last 5 years or so there were a couple of characters like this every once in a while, but recently it's been EVERY SINGLE character in the ecchi-fantasy-harem genre, especially of Light Novels.

Also I personally feel that Flame Princess from Adventure Time is NOT an example. She is a coincidentally similar character. It is incredibly unlikely that she is a derivative of any of these characters. Essentially, she's not an Expy, which is the point of this trope, I guess.

edited 28th Oct '15 10:34:56 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

I'm not convinced that this would be an expy-type trope at all. It seems to me that this is more like a relatively recently-codified stock character instead.

That has nothing to do with fire really. She is the birth of the modern Anime 'superior Tsundere' but that is about it.

edited 29th Oct '15 9:30:53 PM by Memers

Honestly, that's what I think too, but I'm being pushed to make it an expy trope on YKTTW or drop it altogether. Personally I believe it's so proliferous that a trope page for it is valid.

edited 29th Oct '15 10:14:53 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)