Lady Of War / Anime & Manga

Examples of Lady of War in anime and manga.

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• Kuroyukihime aka Black Lotus aka World End in Accel World. Her Duel Avatar has no feet and instead glides around just above the ground giving her movements a smooth, graceful quality. This is because her feet, arms and hands have blades in their place which will tear apart anyone short of any of the other Kings of Pure Color or their most experienced and high level subordinates.
• Ah! My Goddess:
  • Lind is who Heaven calls when they want something completely destroyed. She's actually a very considerate and friendly person, when she's not on the job.
  • To an extent, Belldandy also qualifies, especially considering that her weapon of choice is a staff and her angel uses a bow and arrow.
• Maria of All Rounder Meguru meets the combat specifications as well as a sport like kickboxing allows, as a mature and elegant woman who can dismantle larger and stronger opponents without taking damage using her superior timing and technique. Her demeanor belies a mischievous and perverse personality, however.
• Attack on Titan has Mikasa Ackerman, who was ranked 1st among the 104th Trainee Corps. An Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, she's a calm soldier who is a prodigy in using the 3D Maneuver Gear and two blades, which she uses to cut down Titans with grace and deadly speed.
  • Annie Leonhart's fighting style is heavily influenced by Muay Thai and focuses on precise kicks that remove larger, stronger opponents' size advantage. In demeanor, she's cold, aloof, and graceful.
• Caerula Sanguis in Battle Angel Alita: Last Order uses twin Chinese straightswords and incredibly graceful techniques. She was more flashy during the flashback issues, but needs that flash less afterwards, relying instead on a single, all-encompassing tactic.
• Berserk:
  • Casca is a downplayed case before the Eclipse, being a Tomboy with a Girly Streak. She acts tough, has short hair, and wears male clothing, but she uses a lighter sword and armor with subtle touches of femininity in their design, enabling her to fight more gracefully than her male comrades using nimble flips and somersaults.
  • Farnese is a Double Subversion of this trope. At first, she can't really fight despite being the leader of the Holy Chain Knights, but after she makes her Heel–Face Turn she starts genuinely working towards this trope, including teaching herself to fight with a dagger and learning sorcery from Schierke.
• Black Butler has Francis Midford, a proper lady and expert markswoman and fencing master, who fights a ship full of zombies on a sinking cruise ship alongside her husband and son, kicking just as much ass as they do, if not more. In the same story arc, the audience learns that her daughter, Elizabeth Midford also qualifies as a prodigy swordswoman.
• Sephiria Arks in Black Cat is quiet, dignified, wields a relatively small, ladylike cutlass, and one of the deadliest people in the series.
• Black Clover:
  • Noelle Silva is a feminine, haughty royal who starts working towards this as she develops better control of her magic. She eventually gains the spell Valkyrie Armor, giving her a water armor complete with a lance. Kivn describes her movements while using the spell as an elegant and graceful dance.
  • Charlotte Roselei. Captain of the Blue Rose Knights, a mostly female Magic Knight Squad, she is always calm and graceful on the battlefield, using Briar Magic to transform her sword into a rose bush.
  • Noelle's deceased mother Acier Silva was one. Known as the "Steel War Princess", she wore an elegant metal armor and was unparalleled in the grace and dignity of her magic control. Mereoleona described her as "taking to the battlefield as if she was dancing across it".
• Black Lagoon has Balalaika, the head of the Russian Mafia group Hotel Moscow, and Sister Yolanda, head of the Church of Violence. The former was the captain of a Russian army squadron with enough manpower to potentially fight and hold on their own should World War III occur, the latter holds the guise of a nun, while actually being an arms dealer. Both of them hardly ever swear or raise their voices, maintain a distinct air of grace and respect when speaking or spoken to, and would probably shoot you without hesitation.
• Blade of the Immortal has Otono-Tachibana Makie, whose sheer grace and aloof demeanor in battle is both beautiful and eerie. Anotsu himself describes her skill as "what I can never be, dancing before me." She's so talented that she can even evade the blood her blades spill, without a drop landing upon her.
• Bleach:
  • Rukia Kuchiki initially doesn't look like she qualifies. She's hot-tempered, her uniform is ill-fitting, and she's not adverse to chewing out her male friends if she thinks they're being idiots. However, this rough exterior hides an inner grace that only comes through when she fights. This inner grace has given birth to a zanpakuto that is acknowledged as one of Soul Society's most beautiful zanpakuto. Her theme is inspired by Chinese dance; her zanpakutou is called Sode no Shirayuki (Sleeve of White Snow), a nod to Chinese water dancing, and possesses a long white ribbon on the sword hilt which is swung into specific patterns to activate the zanpakutou's powers (a nod to Chinese ribbon dancing). The techniques themselves are called dances during activation commands. Her Bankai gives her an elaborate icy kimono as she flash-freezes everything in her vicinity.
  • Tier Harribel and her predecessor Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck are calm and dangerous women who fight gracefully in combat. They also care greatly for their allies and will defend them when needed.
• The title character of Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran qualifies as one . . . her craving for sake not withstanding.
• In Case Closed, Heiji's Almighty Mom Shizuka Hattori is a former Kendo champion. In a case where she's one of the suspects, she shows that she hasn't lost her skills via helping Conan and Kogoro to capture the real culprit, who's in the middle of a dangerous Villainous Breakdown and swinging around a katana... by blocking said suspect's attacks with a paper fan.
• In Casshern Sins, Sophita simply due to the sheer grace and beauty of her combat style. In the single episode she's in, you watch her dance throughout battle, using her insanely long sword almost as more of a pivot point than a weapon, only bringing it around (rarely with both hands) for a killing blow.
• Macrophages in Cells at Work! are beautiful, voluptuous women in nurse/maid dresses who clean up and care for/teach the erythroblasts. But when pathogens and infected cells show up, they whip out giant weapons and wreak utter havoc. All with a smile and sunny disposition.
• Satella Harvenheit of Chrono Crusade is a borderline example—dressed in heels and an elegant dress trimmed in fur, with a high-class background and somewhat snobby demeanor, she has her moments where she fits this trope nearly perfectly, but she summons spirits to battle for her with jewels, which allows her to come across as elegant and mysterious, but also means she's not doing a whole lot of the actual fighting herself. She's also a Fiery Redhead, which causes her to at times lose her cool and fight much more viciously and much less elegant. However, fellow jewel summoner and Satella's sister, Florette "Fiore" Harvenheit is a much better example. She uses her powers to summon a jeweled scythe, so her attacks are much more direct, and show off her elegance more, and her personality during battle is cool, efficient, and unfailingly polite. She even curtsies right before she enters a battle for the first time.
• Claymore, being a World of Action Girls has many. Galatea is the dignified and elegant Number Two, Hysteria invented the most beautiful technique, Teresa is always eerily serene and the most powerful Claymore of all time, and Miria is the composed Guile Heroine who uses a speed-based fighting style. In fact, pretty much every female Claymore evolves to a Lady of War thanks to wielding swords and the professional requirement to keep a cool head at all times to avoid Awakening.
• Code Geass has Cornelia li Britannia. Both princess of the Britannian Imperial Family and its army's Commander-in-Chief, she's as beautiful as she is ruthless. She's even named Britannia's "Goddess of Victory" for her mastery over Knightmare Frame combat. And she's a fervent believer in Britannia's racist Social Darwinist philosophy who even goes as far as ordering the slaughter of hundreds of innocent Japanese civilians.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba:
  • Shinobu is a soft-spoken and tranquil Hashira, with her Insect Breathing focused on precise thrusts that can metaphorically appear as a swarm of butterflies. Her Breathing forms are even called dances.
  • Kanao is a quiet young girl and user of the Flower Breathing, a style which focuses on graceful sword flurries and spins. She is noted to be even stronger than her adoptive older sister Shinobu, the Insect Hashira.
• D.Gray-Man has Lenalee Lee, a feminine and softspoken Dance Battler. Her Innocence is the Dark Boots, which she uses to perform graceful acrobatics and kick her enemies with great strength and speed. Klaud Nine and Lulu Bell also fit, with their calm, reserved attitudes and use of more ladylike whips as weapons.
• Digimon:
  • Renamon in Digimon Tamers, especially in her final forms. Her partner, Ruki, is an angry Ineffectual Loner, but becomes a Lady Of War when they Fusion Dance into Sakuyamon. Only while they are Sakuyamon, of course.
  • Lalamon from Digimon Data Squad is pretty goofy-looking and her Crowning Moment Of Awesome is fighting with sausage nunchucks, and none of her evolved forms fare much better until her final form, Rosemon, a dignified lady whose primary mode of attack is a rapier; also present in Savers is BioLotusmon, who's pretty much the same thing.
  • Mervamon of Digimon Fusion leans toward this, as does her partner Nene, who actually spent some time masquerading as an elegant Digimon fighting against the forces of Dragon Land and succeeded at it.
• Homura Kōgetsu from EDENS ZERO is a swordswoman who wears a floral kimono and carries herself with a calm, dignified air. Using her Leopard Stance and Soul Blade, she defeats a group of armed soldiers with almost effortless grace.
• Fairy Tail has several.
  • Erza Scarlet is known as "Titania", Queen of the Fairies, and her Requip lets her conjure various magical armors, which are often fashionable Battle Ballgowns, for enhancing her combat abilities. She has a dignified air and fights in a cool, collected manner using her many weapons. Not to mention, her Requip means that she fights in several revealing outfits, but Erza very much lives up to the shameless part in the Shameless Fanservice Girl that she is, carrying herself with grace when revealing skin and not caring what others think.
  • The villainess Ikagura is a Warrior Poet who recites haiku in battle and wears an elegant kimono. In battle, she has a serene grace while she sends slashes through the air that cut through Erza's armors.
  • Wendy Marvell. Although younger than usual for this trope, she is gentle and Wise Beyond Her Years, and uses her Sky Dragon Slayer Magic more gracefully, employing more gentle open hand palms and kicks alongside powerful gusts of wind.
  • Kagura Mikazuchi keeps her calm composure even when slicing through her opponents with an Absurdly Sharp Blade. Her Hime Cut, a traditional and elegant hairstyle, suits a Lady of War with a katana.
  • Minerva Orland is an aloof, cruel villainess, prior to her Heel–Face Turn, who fights using spatial powers and decisive unarmed blows all while having an air of grace, which she loses when suffering a Villainous Breakdown.
• Pictured above is Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist, a Four-Star Badass whose fighting style focuses on using her sword with speed and grace. She's cool, powerful, incredibly competent, and an Ice Queen. As a testament of her Badass cred, she's one of the only two people who can press Ed's Berserk Button, and leave him cowering in fear instead of raging.
  • Lust is a villainous example. She the head of the main homunculi and is calmer than the rest of her allies and fights with grace in the middle of war.
• In The Garden of Sinners Ryougi Shiki, wades into battle with an almost romantically beautiful combat style with a single dagger, (or occasionally a katana blade) and with her Mystic Eyes of Death Perception she becomes an unstoppable spinning warrior capable of retaining remarkable grace while carving her enemies up in fine fashion.
• Given the setting, more than a few characters from Girls und Panzer qualify. The most notable examples would be Oorai's Anglerfish Team's gunner Hana Isuzu, St. Gloriana commander Darjeeling and BC Freedom commander Marie. Then there's the opposing tankery school heads, Shiho Nishizumi and Chiyo Shimada.
• In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Motoko Kusanagi can be quite ladylike when she's conducting undercover investigations. The rest of the time she's just a Major Badass.
• Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Kycilia Zabi is the franchise's first. She's one of the highest-ranking commanders of the Principality of Zeon, a ruthlessly pragmatic strategist and a capable mobile suit pilot on top of that.
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ both have Haman Khan, ruler of Axis Zeon who's both a brilliant tactician and an exceptional mobile suit pilot. It's telling that she comes closer to actually conquering Earth than the Principality despite having much fewer resources than they did.
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam has Fuala Griffon, one of the lead commanders of Zanscare's Earth invasion and an Ax-Crazy religious nutjob on top of that. Later on she becomes a Cyber-Newtype, which bolsters her piloting skills at the cost of making her even more crazy.
  • Gundam Build Fighters Try: Shia Kijima's combat style is extremely elegant, almost ballet-like. Lady Kawaguchi calls her a "prima", and not in the negative sense that "prima donna" is somtimes used in. The opera gloves she wears are a subtle way of emphasizing her elegance, too.
• Yuri Tsukikage/Cure Moonlight from HeartCatch Pretty Cure! is older than her teammates and adored for her 'elegance' in the ways she does things (like behaving herself or tending to flowers). Which doesn't go away whenever she started kicking ass with graceful movements and flips and decisive and precise blows, which hurt like hell.
• Pharangese/Farangis, the warrior priestess, in The Heroic Legend of Arslan. She's one of the best fighters in the cast, a beautiful, graceful lady who is one of the best with a sword and bow among the main characters, she's utterly loyal to the Prince she's been ordered to serve. She can also drink experienced carouser Gieve under the table, without ever losing her poise.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers has Vietnam, who is described as such by Himaruya. Ukraine appears to be a Shrinking Violet, but her profile practically describes her as this. Not only that, but she also carries an elegant saber with her military uniform. Oh, and given the fact that she beats up Prussia sometimes, Hungary counts.
• Highschool of the Dead: As the former captain of Fuijimi High's Kendo Club, Saeko Busujima's skill with a sword is matched only by her beauty and her insatiable bloodlust. Which has lead some to believe she may have been Born in the Wrong Century, as she'd be far better suited for the battlefields of the Tokugawa Era. As seen in chapter 29, when she tossed a bamboo parasol in the air, long enough to sprint forward and cut down a zombie, in time to catch it before it could hit the ground. Saya's mother Yuriko Takagi also embodies this trope, being an intelligent and graceful elite wife that still knows how to kick ass, although she does break the trope a bit by being somewhat submissive to her husband, not that she minds.
• In Ikki Tousen, Kan'u Unchou skirts this since she uses more raw power than grace, but compared to her friend Chouhi who is in the complete territoriality of raw power, she's more like the Jack of All Stats. She has the attitude of Lady Of War, though. On the other hand, her other colleague, Chou'un Shiryuu, is a complete Lady Of War, not just on the polite and cool attitude, but the fact that she practically is the only girl who almost never receive a Clothing Damage in a series where clothes are made to be easily torn. That speaks a lot of her skill, reserve and grace in battle.
• Inuyasha has some examples.
  • Kikyo is an incredibly powerful Miko who maintains her grace and composure while using Sacred Bow and Arrows to destroy Demons.
  • Sango is a Yamato Nadeshiko, and remains graceful and effective in battle. However, rather than any of the usual weapons of a Lady of War, her weapon is a pseudo-empathic Precision-Guided Boomerang bigger than she is.
  • There's Kagura, the fan-wielding villainess in a kimono, whose attacks are even called dances. Because she uses her fan to cast powerful spells, she's also a Lady of Black Magic.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency has Lisa Lisa, a beautiful and poised Ripple master who mentors Caesar and Joseph. She uses the Snake Muffler technique, channeling Ripple through a scarf to fight enemies in a dignified and graceful style. She effortlessly defeats most enemies, and only loses against Kars because of a cheap shot.
• Tsukumo in Karneval specializes in acrobatics and has an elegant yet strong fighting style. Her personality is generally stoic as well.

• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has a villainous Lady Of War: Mikumo Kushinada, who is not a weapon user, but uses a very elegant and efficient Aikijutsu-like style of fighting.
• Satsuki Kiryuin of Kill la Kill. The Iron Lady of Honnouji Academy, she has a composed and dignified demeanor when using Bakuzan, and is very calculating in battle. However, she breaks from usual standards for a Lady of War with her monstrous physical strength and tendency to yell blood thirsty quips when the situation calls for it.
• Kujibiki♡Unbalance parodies this with Kasumi Kisaragi, an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl Kid Samurai Ojou Defrosting Ice Queen Stepford Smiler Miko Yakuza Mafia Princess Student Body Vice-President.
• Lyrical Nanoha
  • The Blazing General, Signum, a stoic and honorable knight who, while fighting in a manner reminiscent of a Western knight and relying heavily on magically-augmented physical strength, invokes the cool, collected demeanor of the ideal Samurai. These samurai-like traits get lampshaded by Levi, who nicknames her Bushido. Her use of Laevatein as a Whip Sword or Energy Bow give her attacks a sense of grace, which is also present in her smooth movements par being an Aerial Mage.
  • Fate's tutor, Rynith, is shown to fight like this in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny. She curtsies when she introduces herself in battle, fights with a straight gentleman's cane, and moves like a ballet dancer, with pirouettes accompanying the smackdown she delivers.
  • Victoria Dahlgrün of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid fights in a calm and reserved manner that befits the Ojou that she is. In fact, Sister Sein was surprised when she saw her fight since the descendants of Thunder Emperor Dahlgrün shouldn't be that refined. Turns out, Sein was right. While Victoria is normally a Lady of War, piss her off enough and the The Berserker nature of her bloodline will come out.
• Umi from Magic Knight Rayearth fits this trope the best. She's in the fencing club at school and immediately strikes the proper form with her borrowed weapon in Cephiro, and her movements during battle match. When using magic, it's accompanied with a sharp snap of the fingers. It's a contrast to Hikaru's rougher kendo and Fuu's BFS.
• Ren Hakuei and Ren Kougyoku from Magi: Labyrinth of Magic. Both are elegantly-dressed Badass Adorable princesses, who also happened to be Dungeon Capturers, a General of an army (Hakuei), and King Candidates. In addition, their own metal vessels are very much Proper Lady items; Hakuei's being a feathered-fan, and Kougyoku's being her own elaborate hairpin. Dunya Mustashim is also another example of this trope, as she first appears as a demure and polite princess dressed in pink...and then that facade falls away.
• Maken-ki!:
  • Demitra Midia is the amazonian vice-commander of the Venus unit and wielder of Poseidon's Trident. It gives her power to summon and command all water, plus, she uses it as a polearm. She's so imposing, that Haruko was awed by her ability several times during their battle.
  • Yan-Min becomes one as of chapter 76, when she eschews her military uniform for an elegant full-length qipao. Likewise, her fighting style has also evolved; now relying on precision strikes, rather than raw power.
• Melody of Oblivion has Toune Requiem. She's a stoic, firm young woman who shoots down her foes with her bow and arrow with precision and grace.
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit: Balsa is able to read the situation and assess the battle, uses a spear as her favoured weapon, prefers to fight her opponents honorably (even if they don't), looks quite graceful while doing it. But she's always mindful to spare her opponents' lives. If she loses her spear though, she becomes quite the brawler and fights dirty. She's not above smashing your face in with a rock.
• My-HiME:
  • In My-HiME Shizuru Fujino is always ever-so-graceful, even when holding a giant naginata in her hands. Just don't make her angry, or win her affection.
  • Her counterpart from My-Otome, Shizuru Viola, is probably an even better example. Everything Fujino has, she has too, without the whole 'goes batshit insane' thing. On the other hand, she's a bit more sexualized as well.
• Naruto:
  • Kurenai was able to put up a good fight against Itachi and Kisame with her genjutsu in Part I.
  • Konan, an elegant and stoic Paper Master fond of turning into origami butterflies and forming angelic paper wings. She gives There Is No Kill Like Overkill a new meaning when she makes Tobi lose his arm and part of his mask, and kills him with the Paper Angel Technique, which contains 600 billion explosive tags.
  • Hinata becomes this in Part II. Her fighting style is perfect for this, since it's based less on brute strength and more on swiftness, chakra blocking, speed, and exploiting the enemy's weakness. Combine this with her long flowing hair and you get a pretty graceful female fighter. She finally achieves this status in the Fourth Shinobi World War Arc, where she watches Neji's back, saves Naruto a few times against the Ten-Tails, and masters the Sixty-Four Palms and combines it with her Twin Lion Fists. This continues on into the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie, where she personally retrieves Hanabi's lost eyes by ripping them out of the eyesockets of the villain who stole them and later becomes Naruto's Battle Couple partner as they seal away the Big Bad together.
  • Temari also becomes this in Part II. She's more graceful, wears more feminine clothing (as seen with her kimono and short skirts), and uses her giant iron fan to use powerful Wind Release jutsu to attack enemies from afar. She's also a master strategist able to keep up with her future husband Shikamaru and becomes a diplomat between the Hidden Leaf and Sand Villages.
• In One Piece, Nico Robin is a composed Lady of Adventure whose fighting style is both refined and serene, sprouting her body parts from any surface she wants to take down scores of enemies without moving an inch. Petals even appear when she uses her powers, adding to her grace in battle.
  • Boa Hancock puts a whole new meaning to Love Hurts when she turns anyone who pisses her off (but lusts for her) into stone. In close combat, she favors graceful and whirling kicks to the face, which have a certain elegance of their own, and when combined with her stone powers are freaking effective.
• Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke, when compared to the more primal and savage San, is elegant, calm, calculating and has an arsenal of rifles at her disposal that can pierce samurai armor like paper.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica's Mami Tomoe. While using guns, her fighting style has a heavy emphasis on precision, grace and high calculation instead of brute force. She also tends to finish her fights with a curtsy like a Proper Lady and whip out a cup of tea to drink post-battle. In fact, the one time she replaced her precision with recklessness at the thought of having friends, it leads to her brutal death by Charlotte due to missing her weak point. In Rebellion, she still is this and much stronger than ever enough to to overpower Homura with her clone alone alongside knowing her opponent's ability beforehand and took a precaution to be immune from it. It showcases what will happen if Mami isn't burdened by her trauma of losing her parents, managed to overcome her loneliness, and gained reassurance via Madokami's Law of Cycles.
  • Homura falls on the Aloof Dark-Haired Girl end of the spectrum. She's always calm and never in a hurry, yet seems even more experienced and dangerous than Mami. The first witch we see her fight inexplicably explodes after she casually dodges it a few times. Time Stands Still and a Hyperspace Arsenal are a handy combination.
• In Pumpkin Scissors, Alice L. Malvin amazes her sisters and the troops of Section III with how graceful and elegant her moves are during a duel that spans most of the final episodes of the anime. She can't dance on a dance floor, but put her in a fight and she suddenly becomes amazing.
• Utena and Juri from Revolutionary Girl Utena. In fact, most of the cast of Utena are dignified female fencers. (Those who aren't Bishōnen.)
• Robot Romance Trilogy:
  • Combattler V: Empress Janela is the leader of the Campbellians and tortures her own underlings to harden them for the conflict. Her cruelty causes Warchimedes to snap and kill her.
  • Voltes V: Katherine Rii. Though, this seems to be a front, as underneath she's a kind-hearted, cheerful Nice Girl who realizes that war is indiscriminate in who it kills, and isn't worth giving up your life for.
  • Daimos: Raiza plays this straight. Being from a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Ancient Rome, she believes in pulling out all the stops to defeat the enemy, even if it means using dirty tricks and manipulating your own allies. She is well-feared amongst the Baam military as she threatens to whip soldiers who are disobedient to her.
• Sailor Moon has a fair amount with its many Magical Girl Warriors.
  • Michiru Kaiou, aka Sailor Neptune. An elegant, refined, rich, famous, classy, and beautiful violin player who has no problem kicking ass by whatever means is at her disposal. She has a pretty devastating attack in which she uses a violin to blast enemies to oblivion.
  • Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury becomes one after gaining her water blast-based attacks, which have an elegance of their own. She goes Musical Assassin too with Mercury Aqua Rhapsody, in which she attacks with a harp made of water.
  • Rei Hino/Sailor Mars also counts as one. One of her favorite attacks is the very graceful Mars Flame Sniper, in which she elegantly summons a bow and arrow made of fire.
  • Setsuna Meiou/Sailor Pluto is the owner of the beautiful Garnet Rod, a Cool Key which she handles very gracefully.
• Sara from Samurai Champloo. She's a blind assassin who fights with a modified walking staff. She is so good that she wounds Jin enough that he makes a desperate exit and kicks Mugen's ass from pillar to post. The only reason Sara didn't finish the job then is because Fuu threw herself between them. She would've won their second bout but pulled away from a blow that would've split Mugen in two. She does this all with an eerie elegance that makes it look as if she's toying with Mugen and Jin.
• Sekirei features a few, in contrast to the many Cute Bruisers among the titular female aliens. Miya Asama, the Yamato Nadeshiko landlady of the main characters, is an exceptional Master Swordsman and teaches Musubi to not rely so much on brute force. She is also #01, The High Queen of the Sekirei. In contrast, Karasuba manages to be both this and a Combat Sado Masochist. She is a graceful and rarely presents anything but an affable demeanor while carrying out her official duties......which happen to involve massive amounts of bloodshed.
• Whatever her deficiencies outside her work, Yor Forger from SPY×FAMILY entirely fits into this trope when she's on the clock as an assassin - she's as graceful and elegant as she is lethal, carving her way through her enemies with precise, deadly, and acrobatic kicks, pressure points, and stiletto stabs.
• Sword Art Online: Not only is Asuna the sub-leader of the frontline guild "Knights of Blood", she uses a Royal Rapier as her weapon, and quite gracefully so with a fighting style that focuses on speed. Mother's Rosario features this side of her as well and at greater detail and length.
• Octavia from Tears to Tiara is a swordswoman who teaches technique and control as opposed to the hot-blooded flailing around of Arthur.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
  • General Adiane is an elegant fighter who can create massive amounts of water from thin air, and uses her Femme Fatalons as melee weapons and scorpion tail to deflect bullets without getting a single scratch. She is called Adiane the Elegant.
  • Nia Teppelin becomes one in the second Compilation Movie Lagann-hen. She commands her own personal mecha Tengen Toppa Solvernia, the most feminine and elegant mecha in the series in terms of appearance. It's small for a Tengen Toppa, allowing it to acrobatically jump around, and uses a staff with a flower on the end, which turns into a drill to attack.
• Tokyo Ghoul and its sequel have several of these.
  • Akira Mado is an Investigator who is noted for her beauty and graduated top of her class in every subject. Fittingly, she has the talent to use the weapons from her collection of Quinque gracefully, with some being infamous for their difficulty to master. By the time of Tokyo Ghoul:re, she can use the Fueguchi One to kill numerous Ghouls at once, all while looking fabulous.
  • The legendary Special Class Kiyoko Aura, the first woman to ever achieve such a rank in the CCG. She is an elegant woman noted to be considered the idol of all female Investigators and known for being a deadly warrior. She is the current Chief of the organization's combat division, and was classmates with Akira's mother. On the battlefield she shows the utmost poise, firing the Zebizu and wielding it as twin blades with considerable grace.
  • Matsumae, the head servant of the Tsukiyama Family. An elegant woman always dressed in tailored suits, she has refined her abilities to allow her to create barriers or a sword and shield with her kagune. Unlike most Ghouls, her fighting style is equally elegant and borrows heavily from classical fencing.
• Variable Geo: It's made clear, from the start, that Reimi Jahana is the woman to beat. Not only does she wield tremendous Ki, her fighting style embodies such precision, grace, and poise, that she's practically a goddess. Then again, she's actually held that title ("Virgin Goddess") two years in a row, and was the favorite to win again. Which is why her mother had to cheat to get rid of her.
• Princess Kouren of Xing in Yona of the Dawn wants to ready her country for a war she fears is inevitable and unwinnable. She will lead her army regardless.
• Considering how she's very elegant but damn deadly with the monsters she summons through her cards, Ishizu from Yu-Gi-Oh! is the closest to this in a cards game.
• Naomi Fluegel from Zoids: New Century. A beautiful, renowned Zoid warrior, she is cool and confident in battle, using her Zoid as a sniping machine to attack from afar. She's so good using it that she's famed for never losing a one-on-one battle, and flies solo until she's saved by Leon.

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