Action Girl Narrator

Basic Trope: A female combatant.

Straight: Alice can take out a whole bunch of Mooks and even the Big Bad with her physical combat skills. Exaggerated: Alice often takes out a whole bunch of Mooks, Quirky Minibosses, Brutes, Evil Geniuses, Dragons, and Big Bads with nothing but the sheer power of Awesomeness. World of Action Girls Amazon Brigade Alice is a superhuman with near world destroying powers. Downplayed: Alice rarely gets into physical combat, by either choice or lack of situations, but she can put up a fight whenever necessary. Alice fights with cleverness rather then brute strength and is not stupid enough to believe that being beautiful makes her able to brawl with mooks with the build of longshoremen. Thumping them on the head with cobblestones while they search for her somewhere else is what sensible women do. Alice, though not exactly an action hero, is a Badass Driver and could probably easily beat racing legends such as Michael Schumacher or Mario Andretti in a race. Justified: Alice grew up in a rough neighborhood where women got no special treatment for having a vagina. She would have to learn how to defend herself unaided to survive. Alice grew up in a culture where women did get special treatment for having a vagina. The special treatment is to be put through a savage martial arts course. Alice joined the military or became a police officer, etc. Alice is the Heir to the Dojo, etc. In Alice's culture, it is not unusual for women to go to war. Inverted: Alice is always the Damsel in Distress. She has no fighting skills whatsoever and always has to be rescued, usually by the male members of The Team. Alternatively, Alice may not have fighting skills, but instead uses incredible calculative abilities to be a Guile Hero. Non-Action Guy. Gender Inverted: The male Action Hero Subverted: Chickification or Faux Action Girl. Alice is physically stronger than her boyfriend, and comes from a military family. However, the stresses of her Training from Hell and Military Brat upbringing have turned her into an Actual Pacifist. Double Subverted: Alice seems like a Faux Action Girl. Her resume or reputation speak of her ass-kicking skills, but she doesn't fight much, or gets handed the Distress Ball every now and then. When she finally gets her chance to shine, they have to clean up what's left of the villains with a mop. Alice acts like a Faux Action Girl to get close to the Big Bad, whereupon she takes him out. When someone she loves is threatened, she is forced to renounce her pacifism, as violence is the only way to save them. Parodied: Alice is The Ace/This example contains a FlameBait entry. It should be moved to the FlameBait tab.Mary Tzu and a Parody Sue who is seemingly the only person with any competence in fighting at all. The series is a World of Action Girls, and every female character is a formidable combatant. Yes, even the nuns, the little five-year-old girl, and even old ladies. Alice effortlessly overpowers brickhouses of men who are more than half as tall again and twice as heavy as she is, then tosses them around like rag dolls. Alice is a Shameless Fanservice Girl who fights nude ... and her reputation is such that when men see her naked, more of them run away from than towards her. Zig-Zagged: Alice is a Faux Action Girl, add Took a Level in Badass, then stir in Chickification for good measure. Alice's culture is a Proud Warrior Race. The women are supposedly expected to stay home and look graceful and demure while the men are slaughtering the Mooks of the Evil Overlord. But under their elegant exterior the women are as much warriors as the men, are often called upon to defend their homes, and are sternly trained in Urban Warfare, by the teachers in female warrior sisterhoods. They live peacefully caring for their children until an enemy raiding party shows up. At which time they brutally slaughter them and are only grieved that their nice dresses are ruined. When the men come back from their heroic campaign they rebuke the women, not for fighting(for no one objects to that) but for their inconsiderate behavior in not leaving some alive so that the men could share the fun. Whereupon all the women politely and submissively apologize while rolling their eyes at male eccentricity. And everyone lives happily until it is time for the next campaign. Averted: Alice does not fight. Alternatively, no one fights in the show.note Enforced: Affirmative Action Girl Lampshaded: "You took out Evil Elliott! Way to go, Alice!" "Dude, you just got your ass kicked by a girl..." "Shut up, she'll hear you!" "No, this is fighting like a girl!" [WHAM!] Invoked: I Was Beaten by a Girl Exploited: Bob recruits Alice for his Badass Army. Defied: Alice chooses not to fight, so that she will not intimidate Bob and so she can be rescued by him. Alice chooses not to fight because she is an Actual Pacifist. Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication Discussed: "Aw, come on, Alice, you can go into battle! Please? Pretend you're one of those badass female warriors from those books you love!" Conversed: "I love this show. That one girl Alice kicks so much ass." Deconstructed: Alice kicks ass and takes names, but everyone especially her love interest is intimidated by her, even though she is in fact a decent, lovable person. This causes her to feel bad about herself and give up fighting. Alice is as strong as the male characters, but just the fact that she's a girl causes her trouble. Every month she's incapable of fighting for a week and she's not taken seriously and just dismissed as 'the woman' regardless of her abilities. Having to fight her culture tooth and nail just to keep her career quickly gives her Jade-Coloured Glasses in addition to the regular War Is Hell trauma. In order to compete successfully with her male colleagues and gain an edge over her enemies, Alice must work twice as hard. She finally abuses steroids, which turns her into a Brawn Hilda, or is a cause of Muscle Angst. Alice kicks ass and takes names, but she forgets that in spite of all of this, she can never catch up to a man of similar fitness in terms of strength. Underestimating one male opponent costs her her life. Reconstructed: Alice intimidates people, but she does not let it get to her. They get used to the fact that she is an Action Girl and some admire or lust after her for it. Despite knowing the disadvantage she is given, Alice knows that the same thing gives her advantages. She can exploit a villain that underestimates her and otherwise use guile to augment her fighting skills. Alice has Super-Strength; her physical attributes mean nothing. Her fans like heavily muscled women and her work ethic encourages her teammates. Played for Laughs: Alice will kill you for breaking her nails. Played for Drama: Alice must prove that not everyone is effeminate in a world of Girly Girls. Played for Horror: Dark Action Girl.

MEDIA EXAMPLES

Several of the women in 7 Seeds, to varying degrees initially, though most become this due to Character Development. Hana, who is not above exploring new places, often the first to even volunteer to check things out and will fight when it is necessary. Botan is a trained policewoman and is no stranger to danger. One of her first action badass moments is tackling a crocodile to save some of her team members. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Kishika more than qualifies with her samurai fighting skills. Her first appearance in the story has her defend Rentarou from some boys who were harassing him, and it's suggested that she patrols the streets looking for people to rescue on a regular basis. Eira was trained in capoeira by her father, who's a capoeira instructor, and her first appearance has her taking down a couple of guys who wouldn't leave her alone, then stopping a moving car with a single kick without backlash. She and Kishika have a friendly duel when they first meet, and the two of them are evenly matched, with the fight ending in a draw by mutual elimination. Absolute Duo is set at a school that teaches combat techniques, so most if not all the female students are skilled fighters. In Action Heroine Cheer Fruits, stage shows featuring superheroines are very popular. Even disregarding the Show Within a Show elements, An is very good at gymnastics and Le Parkour. Maki, AKA Airmaster, is a streetfighting Huge Schoolgirl with an added dash of desperate thrill-seeking. Her Unknown Rival, Sakiyama Kaori is also an Action Girl. The group of assassins named Night Raid from Akame ga Kill!! has more women among its members than men. Although the members of Night Raid rather call themselves anti-heroes, they are still heroic enough for the female members to qualify for this trope. Najenda is a former general of the army who deserted and founded Night Raid because she realized how evil the Empire is. She is an excellent leader and a very good fighter. Leone also qualifies. She is by far the strongest fighter in the group. And there is also Mine, who is not only an excellent assassin but could also hold her own in the fight against much stronger opponents. Sheele has also shown during the plot that she is a good fighter and assassin. Akame is one of the strongest members and the best swordswoman in the whole anime. Chelsea shows great skill in various assassinations. Sayo, who is not a member of Night Raid, and can not compete with any of the members, but is still said to be a good fighter. Can’t forget Esdeath herself, a Frontline General, An Ice Person, a master swordswoman and all around One-Woman Army. Maki of All Rounder Meguru is a red-haired kickboxing Huge Schoolgirl, and clearly an Expy of the Airmaster Maki. Ryoko and Ikuno in Angel Densetsu; being always around Kitano it's a wonder they still manage to find people trying to bother them. Naomi Armitage from Armitage III. She's so badass, in the second OVA, a lecherous creepo ends up getting absolutely terrified of her! And in Dual Matrix, she suplexed a guy in a heavy mech suit! Attack on Titan: There are more than a few tough ladies in this series, on account of the army not discriminating based on gender. Mikasa is the most deadly in battle amongst the 104th Trainee Corps and is stated to be as good as one hundred soldiers by herself, cooly killing with Titans with relative quickness. Annie also stands out as a strong combatant and expert at hand-to-hand combat. She's also a Titan Shifter. Although usually portrayed as The Ditz, Sasha deserves a mention for being the only character so far to have fought one-on-one against a Titan with no special equipment and live to tell the tale. In Baccano! we have Chane, a mute knife wielder that holds her own against a guy with a shotgun, Ennis, a Battle Butler for the Big Bad of the 1930 storyline, and Rachel, Badass Normal Action Survivor who climbs around on moving trains and saves hostages from heavily armed aggressors without carrying any weapons of her own. The novels include several more that never made it into the anime. Lampshaded in the anime itself: Isaac: "Girls who are strong are faaantastic!" Miria: "Just like Amelia Earhart!" Alita from Battle Angel Alita ZigZags between this trope and Dark Action Girl. With a sound mind, she's a regular Action Girl. But make her mad and she'll start getting really violent. A regular occurrence in the Battle Spirits franchise. Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin has Suiren. Though she has the misfortune of losing in her debut match, she proves to be one early on when she defeats both Striker and Bashin to win a tournament, becoming the main rival to the former. She is consistently shown to be just as good as her male teammates. Later into the show Meganeko takes up card battling and manages to both win her first game and eliminate Smile in a tournament. She becomes a valuable member of Team Shomen Toppa afterwards. Ultimately, pretty much every female character in the series is a battler, including Bashin's mom and a cat. Battle Spirits Shonen Gekiha Dan has Mai Viole, one of the Bearers of Core's Light and a competent battler. While she seems to have turned into a Faux Action Girl in Brave, never battling despite the show bringing up the fact that she can, she later allies with Barone and effortlessly takes down rebels with a powerful Double Nova deck. Additionally, there's Kajitsu Momose, who may be Delicate and Sickly but doesn't let it stop her from being a super-powerful battler who can take down male opponents when she's up for it. Battle Spirits Heroes gives us Kimari, who strives to take over the world and is one of the strongest battlers in Japan. Nora Nyao is an even bigger one, having made it up to the international level. She's also a martial artist who can kick butt outside of card games. Battle Spirits Sword Eyes has Kizakura and Amarello, each one of the chosen Sword Eyes and strong battlers. Amarello, in particular, is dangerous with a whip and Kizakura has improvised now and then with the wooden staff she carries. Battle Spirits Saikyo Ginga Ultimate Zero has Eris and her all-female crew of space pirates. Eris is eventually chosen as one of the Tri-Dragon Deity users and is the first one to defeat the Big Bad. Sadly, Souun from Battle Spirits Burning Soul is a Faux Action Girl, but the ninja Okuni who is introduced much later manages to make a good showing for herself. Casca from Berserk was a very credible one until... stuff happened. It's not and never was chickification because, considering what exactly happened, she has all the right in the world to break down. As of chapter 593, thanks to no longer being The Ophelia, Casca gloriously shows off her regained sword skills◊ to the awe of her companions, who could never have dreamt that the invalid they were looking after was that strong. Though not to the extent of Casca, Farnese has started heading in this direction as of late. Schierke also kicks ass, but she tends towards being the Black Magician Girl rather than fighting physically. Birdy the Mighty: True to the series' name, the eponymous heroine is a Space Federation officer with Herculean strength and nigh invulnerability. Meaning, she's someone whose "bad side" you don't wanna be on... unless your name happens to be "Gomez", or "Christella Revi". Black Clover: Many female Magic Knights are this. Noelle develops into one as she learns to control her immense magical power offensively. Vanessa is a capable fighter using magical threads. Charlotte is the captain of a Magic Knights Squad who transforms her sword into a rose bush to fight. Even Charmy has her moments, creating a giant sheep to pummel enemies. The greatest one in the Clover Kingdom is Mereoleona, who is stated to be the strongest Magic Knight and fights using hand-to-hand combat in combination with her brutal Flame Magic. But above her was Aicer Silva, Noelle’s mother, who previously held the tie of being the kingdom’s strongest Magic Knight who not even Mereoleona could defeat, back when she was alive. Black God firmly establishes Kuro's status in its first episode, after a Tribal End made the mistake of picking a fight with her, which made her spill her bowel of ramen. It was a hard lesson learned: Don't. Do it. Black Lagoon is crawling with them... you've got the Dark Action Girl, the Lady of War, the Ninja Maid...just about every female character with lines can kick much arse when the mood strikes them. Benny: (referring to Revy Roberta and Balalaika) Those are, without a doubt, the three most terrifying women in the world. Dutch: This is feeling way too much like Ground Zero. Virtually all of the main female characters in Blade & Soul such as Alka, Hazuki, and Dan Roana are these. Which is a good thing, because most parts of the world they inhabit is pretty harsh towards those unprepared for it. Makie from Blade of the Immortal. Granted, she does not fight much, but when she begins she easily proves herself to be the best fighter in the entire series. Doa is also seriously dangerous and even Rin can make a reasonable showing on a good day. Since Rin's goal aside of getting her revenge is to become one of these. . . Hyakurin herself is quite competent with her bow and arrow. Amanda from Blassreiter, in addition to being the only one of her whole Badass Normal team to survive...with her humanity. Maria also counts later in the series Bleach has plenty of these: Yoruichi Shihouin is probably the fastest and the most badass female character in the whole series, being able to lay a smackdown on Soifon, Yammy, Aizen, and several Mooks. In fact, she spends a good majority of her screen time kicking ass with hakuda alone. Soifon succeeded her mentor Yoruichi to both the Onmitsukido and the Gotei's 2nd Division. Also, like Yoruichi, she is exceptionally skilled in hakuda and shunpou and chooses to fight with a hakuda/shikai combination. She's taken on some of the toughest opponents in the story, such as Barragan, a Walking Wasteland who could only be killed with his own power. Rangiku Matsumoto is a lazy slacker in everyday life, but when she gets into battle mode (which, given the nature of this series, is often)? Don't Fuck. With. Her. Ever. Neliel Tu Odershvank made her introduction by nearly taking down Nnoitra Jiruga and was formerly the Number 3 Espada in Aizen’s ranks. Rukia Kuchiki, the little pint-sized-ice person...(not Toshiro) fought and won against Aaroniero Arruruerie. To put it into perspective, that battle made into the top 10 most popular Bleach fights of all time. Hiyori Sarugaki is extremely aggressive both in and out of battle, using plenty of punches, kicks, and some impressive sword-fighting. She just might be one of the most action-oriented ladies in the series. Retsu Unohana is also heavily implied to be an extremely powerful fighter, even when she tends to be more of The Medic alongside her whole medical squadron. So far she made Aizen back down with good reason; she's the original Kenpachi and a Blood Knight. Lisa Yadomaru, with her badass Zanpaktou and Shikai, is the series' resident Badass Bookworm. Mashiro Kuna does indeed kick quite a bit of ass, considering she was a lieutenant back in the day. Which is hard to believe since she's such a Genki Girl. Ururu Tsumugiya, with her giant-ass bazooka-thing, is one of the standout examples of Small Girl, Big Gun. Kuukaku Shiba hasn't seen much action, but she did do a little bit of fighting at the end of the Soul Society arc, knocking a giant flat on his butt with a single spell. Not quite as much of an Action Girl compared to, say, Yoruichi or Soifon, but still. Momo Hinamori, after spending her time in the Soul Society arc as the Broken Bird, got to show off her Action Girl chops in the Fake Karakura Town arc when she pulled a Big Damn Heroes to save Matsumoto from getting obliterated. She then proceeded to fight alongside Matsumoto against Dark Action Girl Harribel's Amazon Brigade. She's also pretty badass in the fillers. Jackie Tristan from the Fullbringer arc is pretty good at fighting as well. Ichigo's mother, Masaki, gets point for using her Quincy powers to take on a Hollow that was giving a Captain class Shinigami trouble. She used her Blut Vene to tank his bite and one-shot it with a headshot. In Blood+ you can see Saya. She has been hunting vampires for over 100 years, created by her evil twin sister. Their only weapon is a sword, the blade of which she soaks with her own blood because the vampires react very sensitively to it. When she is in the middle of the fight, she even qualifies for a One-Woman Army. Her sister Diva is even stronger and faster, and a better fighter, but she is far from being benign. Blue Seed's Koume Sawaguchi fits this trope exactly, even to the point where she is considered to be the TAC's muscle against the Aragami. It's even acknowledged in the post-series Time Skip OVA when the other characters directly state that they can't fight the Aragami without Koume's help. There's also second-in-command Ryoko Takeuchi, an ex-cop who doesn't take crap from anybody and is an excellent shot. She even carries a 10mm even when she's off duty. She and Koume team up on missions from time to time throughout the series, and when they do it results in a Curb-Stomp Battle. Boruto does a better job handling it’s female characters compared to its predecessor, showcasing how capable they are. Sumire Kekai is not only the first female character to show off her combat abilities, but she is also the first antagonist, and easily goes toe to toe with Mitsuki and Boruto, two prodigies. Sarada Uchiha is the first character to have a solo fight and win, before the protagonist himself. Sarada is a dangerous combination of both her parents, with the Sharingan from her father and the monster strength inherited from her mother. She is also the only canon female Uchiha with Sharingan created by Kishimoto. Unlike Sakura in her childhood, Sarada is on equal footing with her teammates, and she is often the one giving the main blow to defeat a villain. Chocho is usually your typical Plucky Comic Relief with her antics about food and romancing boys, until she decides to get dangerous. Asuma's daughter, Mirai, deserves a special mention, for defeating a Sharingan user, Sarada. Tsubaki Kurogane is a samurai girl from the Land of Iron, who was selected to become an exchange student exactly for being a Little Miss Badass. She is shown being around the same strength as a Chunin, even besting both Team 5 and Team 15. A Bride's Story: Amir has hunting and survival skills that can be turned to combat, and she’s physically courageous as well as fiercely protective of her new family. It’s actually stated that this was part of a normal education for girls where she’s from. Chapter thirty-three drives the point firmly home when she takes out her own father, the enemy commander, single-handed. Karluk’s grandmother, Balkirsh, is an expert archer, and while she mostly stopped using her bow after she got married, she’s still got the touch, as well as Nerves of Steel. She also uses her talent for riding goats to rescue a small child from a steep cliff in a side chapter. She isn’t exactly young either. The anime Brynhildr in the Darkness has magicians who can fight well. Especially Neko Kuroha should be mentioned because she has powerful powers and is involved in many battles. Bubblegum Crisis centers around the Knight Sabres, an all women's group of power-armored mercenaries who opposes the Genom Corporation. All of them (except Nene) are physically fit and routinely face-off against Boomers that are capable of mowing down entire divisions of heavily armed police. Sakura Kinomoto and Mei Ling from Cardcaptor Sakura. Since Sakura is one of the iconic Magical Girl heroines, this is to be expected. Mei Ling, meanwhile, is just a straight-up badass.