Dark Magical Girl

Anime and Manga

Pictured above is Fate Testarossa fromMagical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, perhaps the quintessential example.

Lutecia fromNanoha StrikerS fits the bill pretty well, too.
Runessa is essentially this to Teana inStrikerS Sound Stage X. Granted, both of them arevery liberal interpretations of MG and DMG characters but their dichotomy is nevertheless obvious.
Einhart Stratos fromViVid seems to be anOlder Alter Ego take on DMG.

One of the first DMGs is Non, Meg's rival fromMajokko Meg-chan.

We also have Karen, Sally'sShadow Archetype from the secondSally the Witch series.

Pixy Misa from thePretty Sammy series.

Yugi fromTenchi in Tokyo, who is also the rareBig Bad version.

Freesia Yagyuu fromJubei-chan season 2. She doubles as aNinja.

Hotaru Tomoe (Sailor Saturn) fromSailor Moon is subverted. At first,the Outer Soldiers treat her as a Dark Magical Girl because they believe her awakening as Sailor Saturn would bring aboutThe End of the World as We Know It. This turns out to be somewhat true; though Saturn does have the power to initiate an apocalypse, she would never do so unless ordered to by her Queen; however, in the present day her reincarnation is possessed byThe Dragon, whose goal isThe End of the World as We Know It. The protagonists are understandably confused about Hotaru's motivations for much of the season.

A closer example might actually be Uranus and Neptune. They're older and stronger than the other soldiers (except forPluto) and have a very tenuous relation with them, often work against the inner Senshi for the same goal, and are much more cynical and much more prone toengage in questionable methods to bring them about (and they'renot happy about using said methods either). They have trouble understandingThe Power of Trust andThe Power of Love, except toward each other. And even when theydo come around and aknowledge Usagi's leadership, Haruka and Michiru tend to work as a duo rather than with the rest,to the point of killing Saturn and Pluto and becomeFake Defectors in a desperate bid to get at Galaxia. Which actuallyfails, and gets them killed.
Chibiusa achieved Dark Magical Girl status temporarily inSailor Moon R, as she is brainwashed by Wiseman, whocorrupts her with dark magic and cruel words, making her believe that she is responsible for her grim future and that no one loves her. As a result, she becomes Black Lady, an older version of herself, with longer hair and a very revealing outfit, and becomes a servant of Wisemandue to her bitterness and pain upon the cruel pastthat she genuinely believes she had. In the manga, she even brainwashes andseduces her father, though. in the anime, she actively hates both parents and tries to kill them (Usagidoes have a vision of Black Lady and Tuxedo Kamen kissing, butit's a part of Wiseman's attempted brainwashing of her. Which doesn't work, by the way.) She returns to her younger and happier original self after a while, however:either by witnessing Pluto'sHeroic Sacrifice (manga) orafter a pep talk from her parents (anime).
Dark Sailor Mercury (aka"Darkury") fromPretty Guardian Sailor Moon is not just an ordinary Dark Magical Girl, but a former regular Magical Girl corrupted and co-opted by the bad guys. It takes Moon MORE than a mere"I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight to bring her back to the side of good.
- And that's not to mentionSailor Moon herself, when she goes into herPrincess Sailor Moon persona.
The manga version of Sailor Galaxia is what happens when a Dark Magical Girl grows up and comes into full power before meeting her good counterpart. As you can guess,her mental state is not pretty.

Dark, fromD.N.Angel is a male example.

Dark Nana (Jamanana) fromSeven of Seven is another good example. She is Nana's dark side/true self, born from her despair over Yoichi and left unnoticed, jealous of all the fun the others had. She has proven to be much,much stronger than the other Nanas, able to hypnotize people easily, teleport, fly with ease, fire energy blasts, and basically be a badaxe. In the end,she just needed a hug.

Nova fromMagic Knight Rayearth has some of the elements of the DMG, but not quite.

The "Tasogare no Miko" (Priestesses of the Twilight) inAsagiri no Miko.

To an extent, Valkyrie Ghost inUFO Princess Valkyrie.

Takako, aka Fenrir the Princess of Disaster, inPrétear, who is also theBig Bad. AndHimeno's stepsister Mawata, while under her influence.

Mikoto Minagi fromMy-HiME is truly innocent, sweet, and loving toward everyone she knows—but becomes a holy terror in the defense/service of the brother whom she has been seeking through the entire series, and who turns out to be the biggestBig Bad in the entire show.True to the form of the trope, Mikoto's convinced to do aHeel Face Turn viaThe Power of Love from Mai, and then she frees her brother from his inner darkness by smashinghis pendant with her sword.

Also fromMy-HiME is Nao Yuuki, who travels the path she took becauseher father was killed and her mother was seriously injured by robbers. Unlike Mikoto, shedoesn't get converted over as easily. Making Nao even more tragic,shewas beginning to really warm to the group beforeNatsuki was tricked into attacking her. It's hard not to feel sorry for her when she leaves, screaming revenge and clutchingwhat's left of her right eye, once you realize it.

Nina (among others) fromMai-Otome. Tomoe is a notable aversion; she's simplypure evil.

Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has the dark magicalwoman, Sara, who, in a slight subversion of this trope, turns out to beThe Man Behind the Man herself, rather than the other way around.

Pretty Cure has used this trope multiple times.Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash* Star gives us the Kiryuu sisters, Michiru and Kaoru,Fresh Pretty Cure has Setsuna Higashi, alias Eas (until she became Cure Passion),Heartcatch Pretty Cure features the aptly-named Dark Pretty Cure, andSuite Pretty Cure has Siren (untilshebecame Cure Beat).

Rue, aka Princess Kraehe, fromPrincess Tutu.

Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z has both Princess Morbucks and Sedusa, the evil super-powered alter-egos of more sympathetic, troubled girls, Himeko and Annie.

The English dub ofTokyo Mew Mew made Renee (Zakuro) out to be a former Dark Magical Girl, or at least pretending to be one; this has causedsome confusion, but that's nothingMew.

Retasu sort of starts out as a DMG—her fear of her own powers made her unusually strong, and she nearly defeated Ichigo and Minto after they discovered that she is a Mew Mew.Of course, she loses this coolness upon joining the team...

Suigintou ofRozen Maiden is developed into this role in the sequels.

Miyu of theVampire Princess Miyu TV series starts out as largely this archetype—a reserved, lonely girl whose only companions are herTeam Pet, Shiina, and her battle partner, Larva. However, she's a very atypical case, as she's the main character, and begins to grow out of it due to discovering friends, rather than being lured out of it by the magical girl. Her rival, Reiha, is a more straight example.

Lucy fromElfen Lied is a personification of this concept, although she may bequite a bitdarker and more brutal than most.

Rubi Toujou fromRosario + Vampire starts off as this archetype, but since she's in anUnwanted Harem show, her move to the side of good is a bit different. Later on, she's the one who saves Tsukunefrom himself.

Yuko Amasawa fromDennou Coil is a dark technological girl (though, with the way technology gets treated in the series, it could just as well be magic). Other than the fact that she is the closest thing the series has to a recurringBig Bad (she's more like a master-lessEnigmatic Minion), she fits the trope to a T.

Saint Tail'smother in the mangaKaitou Saint Tail was a Dark Magical Girl named "Saint Lucifer" long before Meimi was born. Convinced toHeel Face Turn by Saint Tail's father, they settled down together. (In the anime, she was always good, though more morally grey than Meimi.)

Crona the Witch Sword User fromSoul Eater.His/Her mother, Medusa the Witch, "trained" Crona by forcing Crona to beat his/her pet rabbit to death, and locked Crona in a closet until s/he agreed to do so. Then they ate the rabbit. S/he also has theBlack Blood taint and the demonic sword, Ragnarok.

Even more so as of Chapter 96,where s/he may have graduated toBig Bad Friend.

Naha Midori fromTelepathy Shoujo Ran, who wasGenre Savvy enough to do an immediateHeel Face Turn. She then goes on to get practically adopted into Ran's Family, and spends the rest of the series living the good life.Ohara Momoko is a dark magical girl who grows up without going through the face turn, and ismiserable because of it.

Izayoi Aki fromYu-Gi-Oh! 5D's when she first appeared, having been alienated from other people due to her fearsomePsychic Powers. When Yusei met her, she was quite unstable, having developed a destructiveSplit Personality (the Black Rose Witch) out of anger and guilt, and was hostile towards him for bearingthe mark she believed was responsible for her suffering (actually the sign she was achosen one). As with most examples of this trope,she joined the heroes after being defeated by the main character - in this case, it took two Duels and some help from her parents, who truly regrettedneglecting her, forYusei to get through to her. However, after the Dark Signers were defeated, she took the opportunity tolive a normal life, without causing pain to others, something that she couldn't do before.

There's a possible secondary one:Carly Nagisa, during her stint as a Dark Signer.

Utau Hoshina fromShugo Chara is an example played straight. Though whenever Ikuto stops by, she goes from a serious and brooding dark magical girl tolovelorn and cutesy.Afterboth of her Charas leave her, she gets someEpiphany Therapy and turns to the side of good.

The titular character inHell Girl, Enma Ai.

Kuesu fromOmamori Himari, who is also aBlack Magician Girl.

Yukina fromGirls Bravo is an extremely rareBig Bad example.

The show also has Lisa Fukuyama, aYandere,Friendly Enemy example.

Except for the male thing, Gaara fromNaruto.

If the flashbacks are to be believed,Hinata could have been this if not Naruto's influence on her.

Nami inSora wo Kakeru Shoujo. Her powers are tech-based, but she fits perfectly character-wise.

Mahou Sensei Negima has quite a lot of girls that qualify. First,Evangeline McDowell, then,Chao Lingshen, and now,Fate Averruncus' accomplices (especiallyShiori andHomura).

Yue Ayase is an interesting case who teeters back and forth on the edge of averting this trope for most of the series. Most of her "dark" traits are most apparent near the beginning of the series when her primary character attributes (apart from being Nodoka's best friend) involved being aslightly chilly Brilliant but Lazy serial snarker. In fact, Yue barely averts what could have been aStart of Darkness when her feelings for Negi led to her thinking that she had betrayed Nodoka in a moment of weakness; rather than face her best friend, she chose to run away, and were it not for Nodoka's timelyintervention, poor Yue could have sunken to the emotional depths required for DMGs. Regardless, she doesn't unlock her magical abilities until a fair way into the series: by that point, she's warmed up to the rest of the group, effectively ditching the most negative DMG traits she had around the same time she became a mage. At this point, it's hard to say for certain whether Yue is a recovering DMG or just an unusually cynical/snarkyMagical Girl.
As the story progressed, we havethe Rainyday twins. Zazie is a standard version, while "Poyo" has touches ofDark Action Girl.

Pretty brutal and tragic version: Rosine fromBerserk. Schierke also counts, but she's somewhat luckier as she joins Guts'sTrue Companions group.

The real Saji Genpou inIkki TousenGreat Guardians, and Ten'i inDragon Destiny.

Mio fromZettai Karen Children, who's almost anExpy of Fate.

Darry plays one in "Kiyals Magical Time, Three Minutes After", ofTTGL Parallel Works 2

Dead Master, in the OAV ofBlack★Rock Shooter.

Explored and extensivelyDeconstructed Trope inPuella Magi Madoka Magica, to the point that it could be argued to apply to every magical girl in the showexcept Madoka. The magical girls of that world are dark because the nice ones eitherdie earlier or learn the truth about what they are and join the ranks of the DMG. Until Madokaascends to godhood and rewrites the world,giving them much more peaceful deaths.

Homura Akemi, the in-house poster girl for this trope, is asubversion. She wasGood All Along,opposingKyuu bey (a.k.a.Incubator, arguably theBig Bad of the series) and doing everything forthe sake of Madoka. She did, however,Invoked Trope this trope for the sake ofnot getting too close to, and thus hurting, Madoka - that, andafter failingso many times, she's quite theBroken Bird.
Kyouko is a straighter example.
Also applies to theSpin Offs. InOriko Magica,Oriko is aWell-Intentioned ExtremistandVillain Protagonist example,Kirika is herPsycho Supporter, and Yuma doesn't fit the tropebut even she hadAbusive Parents. InKazumi Magica,it's increasingly implied that thePleiades Saints are all DMGs of some sort, and Kazumi may have been one before herIdentity Amnesia.

Prisma Ilya, theMagical Girl Spin-Off version of thehorrifying andadorable Ilya, gains a rival and subsequent ally in Kuro, a dark-skinned duplicate of herself with more attitude and fewer morals. Oh, and any pain inflicted on Ilya is also transferred to Kuro, making for some hilarious self-inflicted punishment.

Sigil fromHyper Speed GranDoll is a textbook example. Even before getting converted to the good side by the heroine's friendship, she's a pretty honorable girl who's only on the villains' side because she'sin love with theBig Bad. She also has quite a bit ofLes Yay with the heroine and evenTakes The Bullet for her.

Morgan Le-Fay from theAh! My GoddessMovie.

Princess Luna fromPeter Pan no Bouken.

Esperanza fromOrphen. She's beautiful, silent, a talented magic user and swordswoman, and with one single goal:to fulfill a dangerousDeal with the Devil, alongside her father, so she can save her little sister Lycoris's life. For that, she won't hesitate to damn herself and whoever crosses her path.

Azalie is this too, and arguably even more so.As aTeen Genius, she became obsessed with becoming a powerful sorceress due to having the man she loved, Childman, reject her love declaration. Said obsession became madness, and the horrible results had her becoming Bloody August, theBig Bad dragon of first season. She's not evil, but isincredibly broken and embittered due to the consequences of turning into a dragon, and midway through the first seasonshe starts to plan herRevenge on those who wronged her... and specially Childman.

Though her skills are based onPsychic Powers, Lina fromCyborg 009 fits in perfectly personality wise. She's a kind and quiet girl, thoughtful and softspoken... and one of the most powerful members of a certainQuirky Miniboss Squad.

The firstCardcaptor Sakura gives us Mahoudoushi/The Enchantress, theBig Bad. The contrast with her and Sakura, theMagical Girl, is revealed over the course of the movie.Mahoudoushi is a lonelyHot Witch who practisedBlack Magic, and she turned sour after her lover and mentor Clow sealed her away. After fighting theMagical Girl and losing, she has aHeel Face Turn, and manages to finally pass on in peace.

Live Action TV

Power Rangers usually prefers theDark Action Girl route, but Marah & Kapri fromPower Rangers Ninja Storm,Lothor's bumbling nieces, are more DMG-ish. They don't really want to be evil; they just want to be normal teenage girls, valued by their uncle ("By marriage", as Lothor points out.). He finally leaves them tobe destroyed in theGrand Finale, butCam,Lothor's biological nephew, reluctantly decides to save them "because they're family". In theReunion Show, they pretended to rejoin Lothor, butactually worked behind the scenes to free Cam's father, Kanoi...who then went on to save Cam, Hunter, and Blake...who then went on to save theDino ThunderPower Trio from being wiped out byNinja Storm'sThree Amigos.

Also, Nadira fromPower Rangers Time Force. She was a mix ofDark Action Girl andSpoiled Brat, but theGrand Finale gives her a more sympathetic role as she starts to really value life,and this triggers her father Ransik's redemption

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Faith, in season 3, is the dark alternative to Buffy.

Video Games

Rose inLegend of Dragoon fits this trope perfectly

Averted and subverted in turns in theFate/stay night visual novel. Rin initially seems a good candidate for the role: an orphan raised to obsess over her family's sorcerous legacy, who candidly admits (to the reader) that her entire school life is a crafted facade of vanity with little real emotional investment. However, she ends up becoming a more or less loyal and dependable ally of the protagonist, Shiro, in all major branches of the story.No, it's her separated-in-childhood sister Sakura (?), sweet, nurturing, and devotedly in love with Shiro (?), who in one scenario, snaps after all theBreak the Cutie piled on her foryears and becomes an unstoppably deadly force of darkness who supplants the would-beBig Bad that corrupted her. Remember,Beware the Nice Ones.

She's not magical,per se, butMetal Gear Solid: Portable Ops has a notable case in that theMagical Girl and the Dark Magical Girl are originally presented as twin sisters - theMagical Girl is devoted to her sister and talks about her a lot, while the Dark Magical Girl stalks around alone trying to read people's minds. It turns out that...well, both 'sisters' join forces with the hero to destroy theBig Bad at the end - and give aprophecy together.

Marisa Kirisame fromTouhou games dresses vaguely like aCute Witch, brews potions like a witch, and definitely tries to invoke the image—because that is what she think witches should dress and act like and, in Touhou,that can matter a lot. She was originally a servant of the"evil" spirit Mima but, asDefeat Means Friendship, she has been a long-running protagonist since. Despite living by herself in the Forest (of Magic), she's no antisocial wallflower and is probably one of the most outgoing characters in the series.

Alice Margatroid also shows some shades of this trope but she is more of aMarionette Master archetype and her darker tendencies tend to be exaggerated by theFandom. Also, she's ayoukai so that has to count for something. Depending on the level of Retcon (or if your name isFuantei), she may also come with "parental issues."
Mokou is an odd example in that she has all the earmarks of this trope, but her image is overshadowed by her on-off rivalry with Kaguya and her interaction with Keine. And she wears suspenders and red poofy pants.

Web Comics

Ariel Val'Sarghess. A heroic example (kinda), but she still qualifies.

Megatokyo's Tohya Miho: we've seen herflip a van with one hand, jump three or four blocks whilst carrying Kimiko, andwalk nonchalantly on telegraph wires, and the held-back tears give it away when Kimiko tells her that thelack of emotional connection to others necessarily means the lack of what it is to be alive.

In theMechagical Girl Lisa A.N.T., the characterPink Flash is quite a subversion: she is a mercenary who willfully works for evil alien invaders (as opposed to Lisa, who works forother evil alien invaders because she's too gullible), but she is anything but dark.

Angel Moxie, itself a pastiche ofMagical Girl and Anime tropes, had the character of Tristan fill in the role of the Dark Magical Girl. She even worked for the villain near the start, but she quickly changed sides afterbeing betrayed.

Bell fromBleedman'sPowerpuff GirlsMassive Multiplayer Crossover.

WhileHomestuck doesn't really have a standard magical girl trope,Grimdark Rose Lalonde certainly fits the Dark Magical Girl bill.

InTo Prevent World Peace, the main character (a villain) takes down dark magical girls in order to make the nice ones stronger.

Web Original

Sailor Nothing explores the trope through the eyes of the main character, Himei. Being a heroic example of this trope doesn't comfort her much, though.

Soyburger Patricia of theLeague of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions sort of falls into this trope.

Tami from the web novelDimension Heroes is brainwashed into working for the evil Dark Lady Scortana, resulting in a radical change both in personality and wardrobe.

Sailor H ofMagical Girl Hunters is more of a case of a sociopathMagical Girl (as many magical girls in the series are), but her origin involves a combination of a literally rabidMentor Mascot and the rest of her team being slaughtered before her. The fact that her sailor outfit is made out of black vinyl and rubber and she wields a whip gives her an honorary status if nothing else.

MSF High Forum: Kiana. Her rival, however, is a straight-Magical girl, who's Wrong Genre Savvy. Said rival, however, is a One-Scene Wonder.

Western Animation

WITCH features an interesting variation. The Dark Magical Girl Elyon Brown, alias Princess Elyon from Meridian, fights the heroines because she hates them personally due to a misunderstanding aided by some manipulation—but aside from that, she's avery sweet and naive person, so much so that the heroines have to pull punches against her...especially one of them, Cornelia Hale, who is Elyon's long-time friend.Good thing the misunderstandings are more or less cleared and they became friends again.

Charmcaster fromBen 10, the antithesis toMagical Girl Gwen. In the third series,Ben 10 Ultimate Alien, it turns out thather whole motive for being evil is to gain enough power to free her home dimension from a tyrannical being that killed her parents and left her lonely and bitter. She ends up gaining the typical Magical Girl-Dark Magical Girl bond with Gwen as well.

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: a young (if immortal) winged unicorn with magical powers, Luna is the herald of Night, and is therefore forever alone (because ponies are diurnal). Due to a combination ofsome unknown magical force and her own loneliness and jealousy, sheturns to evil, gets aPlot-Relevant Age-Up andgreen eyes, dons agothy, slightly bondagey outfit, and is promptlysealed away for a thousand years. When she escapes, she uses her powers to fight the even youngerMagical Girl sent unwittingly to redeem her, who defeats her withThe Power of Friendship andreunites her withher sister.

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