Perky Female Minion

GET OUT OF HERE, DEMENCIA!

"My aura has never been pinker!"

— Ty Lee letting her Ax-Crazy boss know how she's doing, Avatar: The Last Airbender

A good way of applying the humor of The Comically Serious to villains is by pairing them with the Perky Female Minion. This character is something like the Distaff Counterpart/Foil to the Enigmatic Minion; she can range in psyche from Punch-Clock Villain to fairly psychotic, but have an upbeat, Genki Girl personality, in sharp contrast to the (usually male) Big Bad she serves, who will be gloomy, Ax-Crazy, etc. If the female minion has a crush on her boss, which she often does, it will generally be of the Mad Love variety, although this affection isn't a requirement, nor is its reciprocation.

However, despite her cheerfulness and energy, she is usually still good at what she does. When this is the case, her employer usually views her as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer.

Compare Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl for a similar dynamic. Contrasts The Baroness for the exact opposite, a chilly/chilling and sadistic villainess. Can be a subtrope of Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Berserk has Sonia, Griffith's New Band of the Hawk's Mission Control, who is also infatuated with her boss. Despite being always surrounded by horrible monsters — known as Apostles — she is always smiling and welcoming.
• Bleach: Starrk's fraccion, Lilynette Gingerback (who turns out to be an actual part of him and the key for releasing his Resurrección, and Zaraki Kenpachi's vice captain Yachiru.
• Boarding School Juliet has Somali, who would actually be quite likeable if she didn't work for a guy who breaks people's legs. In fact, wanting to ensure her happiness is a big reason why Aby engages in his skulduggery.
• Misa Amane towards Light in Death Note, in which Light would kill her without a second thought were she not useful to him, and had her Mama Bear Shinigami (Rem) not threatened to kill him if he hurt her.
• Dorohedoro: Noi is a very downplayed example. She is perky and upbeat compared to her phlegmatic and quieter partner and Senpai Shin, and Shin occasionally gets annoyed by Noi's attempts to make friends with their assassination targets or cheering him on when he's busy planting someone's head three feet into solid concrete. Once off the job, the two are shown to have a mutual Undying Loyalty to each other and view each other as equals, due to both being Big Eater Blood Knights who share a lot of hobbies and a sense of humour(s).
• Excel from Excel♡Saga toward Il Palazzo, although he is more of a jerk than Ax-Crazy. Though he does have that disturbing habit of killing her for trivial reasons.
• Hellsing:
  • There's an exception to the Always Female rule with Warrant Officer Schrödinger. For good measure, he's also a catboy. This being Hellsing though, he does occasionally exhibit a Slasher Smile.
  • Played straight on the other hand with Rip van Winkle, who is surprisingly airheaded and cheerful for a member of a nazi batallion, in direct contrast to Zorin, who is anything but this.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has a few:
  • During the Ragnarok arc, Loki has Number 20 (real name Touko Amada according to the databook). Like Loki, she's fond of using underhanded tactics like taking children hostage, and she's most of the time being rather cheery about humiliating their opponents. She's implied to have romantic feelings for Loki, who despite mistreating her seems to reciprocate as he also goes out of his way to protect her from harm, and after Loki makes a full Heel–Face Turn to the Shinpaku Alliance, she follows him.
  • Rimi Kokorone is this for Yomi. She's a flirtatious and childish girl who seems fond of dressing in provocative outfits, her preferred attire being a Gothic Lolita dress. She's also in love with Ryuuto Asamiya, aka Odin, and everything she does is to impress him, and she's no slouch in a fight, being a Satsujinken user.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Sein and Wendi of the Numbers in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Their unprofessional personalities in a team created to be war machines is given many a Lampshade Hanging by the older cyborgs in the manga chapter that featured them.
  • Fate's Evil Knockoff Levi is loud, energetic and an airhead, in contrast to Nanoha's Evil Knockoff Stern who is calm, reversed and very intelligent. Though, Hayate's Evil Knockoff Dearche is even louder than Levi, Dearche isn't a minion, she's the king and always serious.
  • Arnage of the Hückebein family from Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force has the least dark character portrayal and is actually pretty funny. Like Sein and Wendi, she's a Genki Girl, and additionally a Big Eater.
  • Curren Hückebein is a Perky Female Big Bad. She often acts very childish and puts cute faces, but since she's the Big Bad and a Mood-Swinger, she always switch to her dark and creepy persona.
  • Lolo Endive of the Grendel family, also from Force, is the Genki Girl in contrast to Cold Sniper Mariya Ranevskaya and the Not So Stoic Quinn Garland.
• Yuuri in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is the perky, suck-up Bratty Half-Pint in the first Quirky Miniboss Squad. She and all her teammates also fall under Mad Love (except Mimi and Sheshe, who are involved with each other) but only Yuuri fits the Perky Female Minion description. Alala from the second arc plays the role of Perky Female Minion as well, though she isn't nearly as attached to her respective Big Bad.
• Mon Colle Knights has Batch and Guuko. Guuko is the most perkiest of the two, if not the most dimwitted one.
• Given the world of One Piece, this is inevitable.
  • Porsche is one of Foxy's Vice-Captains, and is very eager to cuddle with Chopper after the Foxy Pirates win him in the Davy Back Fight.
  • Perona is a Perky Goth who works for Gecko Moria of the Thriller Bark Pirates. She has a number of zombies made to resemble her stuffed animals. Later, she ends up working with Dracule Mihawk instead, which somehow lets her fit this trope even more.
  • Ulti is one of the Tobi Roppo (An elite squad of Headliners underneath the All-Stars) who isn't afraid to insult Kaido for making them involve with his family issues and constantly begs attention from her little brother Page One, much to his annoyance. That said, she's also very serious about her work and is one of Kaido's most efficient and devoted enforcers, making her somewhat of a zig-zagging example.
• In Pokémon Adventures, Commander Mars of Team Galactic jumps up and down with joy and gets childishly excited at the thought of blowing up one of Sinnoh's lakes. In her first appearance, she also stops what she's doing to listen to one of Diamond and Pearl's comedy routines.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Harley Quinn was originally a psychiatrist assigned to the Joker but wound up falling in love with him and helping him in his crimes. She's an unrepentant murderer, but so cheerful and so absolutely devoted to "Mistah J" that one can't help but pity her when he slaps her around and/or threatens to kill her. Of course, the Joker is by no means gloomy or deadpan. Though Harley has long since realized how rotten the Joker actually treated her, leading to her leaving him and ultimately undergoing a Heel–Face Turn.
  • After Harley's shift to being an Anti-Hero, Punchline was created to replace her as Joker's new minion. Aside from being a lot more evil, Joker evidently likes her more and treats her slightly better than he did Harley to the point of teaching her how to make Joker Venom.
• Sin City: Mariah, the Colonel's perky assassin, is both fashionable and a Deadpan Snarker.
• Wolverine: Sabretooth had the very short-lived Birdy, who played this role for him. In the comics it is just a front as she had been unwillingly Reforged into a Minion by him, but in her adaptational appearances in the Capcom vs. games, it is played completely straight. Like most of mutants on Krakoa, she was resurrected.
• Wrong Earth: Deuce, a cute blonde Harley Quinn expy and Batman henchgirl homage.
• X-Men: Minordomo, assistant to Majordomo (who is Mojo's assistant himself). She's so genki that she suffers repeated heart attacks getting worked up over imagined disasters. Since she is also an android, this typically just requires someone to hit her reset button, rather than having any lasting effect. This makes the two of them a Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl duo.

Fan Works

• The New Adventures of Invader Zim: Introduced in Season 2, Nyx serves as this to Zim. She has an upbeat, cheerful personality that completely offsets the fact that she's a Bomb Throwing Anarchist and a Psycho Supporter to Zim's agenda.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Hilda of all people is this to the Bloodline Prince. She's a rather upbeat Mad Mathematician and freely admits to sleeping with the Prince, but from what is seen, he treats her well and clearly enjoys it.

Films — Animation

• In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Doctor Olivia Octavius is this in contrast to the more serious enforcers on the Kingpin's payroll like the Scorpion and Tombstone. She has an enthusiastic, upbeat attitude and enjoys quipping as much as killing.

Films — Live-Action

• While Martin is an Anti-Hero rather than villain in Grosse Pointe Blank, Marcella, his Sassy Secretary fits this trope pretty well. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a romantic relationship between the two (they are played by siblings John and Joan Cusack), and in fact both don't really seem to like so much as respect each other.
• Although in this case, they are both Ax-Crazy, in the Harry Potter films, Bellatrix Lestrange comes across as one of these, as a contrast to Voldemort. While Voldemort is very cold and doesn't really emote normally, Bellatrix is gleefully psychopathic. Because of her crush on Voldemort, it seems like if this were a (very strange) romantic comedy, Bellatrix would be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
• In Stiletto, Lee's girlfriend Penny is a young streetwalker he picked up during his exile in Britain. She gets off on violence, which is especially obvious in the scene where Lee is torturing a guy for information and asks her to pass him the belt sander so he can take the guy's tattoo off.
• In Ten Dead Men, Torture Technician the Projects Manager has a silent female associate who assists him in his tortures, and really gets into it. She has enough moxie to try to take on Ryan single-handed when the Projects Manager scarpers.

Literature

• Juliet Butler of Artemis Fowl, sister to Artemis's Battle Butler. She eventually decides that body-guarding isn't her thing and leaves to try out for a wrestling team.
  Artemis: I can only hope that she fails the audition. Though I doubt it. She is a Butler, after all.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, this is basically Claire's official job description. Her villainous costume is a full-body teddy bear costume, which helps enhance her power to cloud minds with cuteness.
• Cindy Wakowski a.k.a. Red Riding Hood fills this role for Villain Protagonist Merciless in The Supervillainy Saga as she serves as a constant source of sass and Fanservice for the villain. Eventually, they get a Relationship Upgrade.

Live-Action TV

• Most of the villains in the campy '60s Batman series had at least one, maybe a couple. Exactly big a role they played in the villain's gang and how loyal they were varied. (Not to mention how loyal the villain was to her; the Joker betrayed one Perky Female Minion, who made a Heel–Face Turn as a result.)
• Harmony in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is initially this to Spike. Later she takes the same role for Angel, who, while not evil (most of the time), is gloomy enough to retain the contrast.
• In Monster Warriors, Big Bad Klaus Von Steinhauer's assistant Missy Gore is unfailingly upbeat and ditzy despite the fact she is helping Klaus create monsters and unleash them on Capital City. Her ditziness makes her as much a hindrance as a help, especially when combined with Klaus' instability.
• Super Sentai: Many series have one.
  • Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger has the cutesy Furabiijo, the lowest ranked of the Seven Dark Spears who behaves with the manner of a disinterested yet extremely energetic child most of the time.
  • GoGo Sentai Boukenger has Shizuka of the Wild, an energetic and childish ninja spy working for Dark Shadow.
  • Mahou Sentai Magiranger has Nai and Mea, Vancuria's two Perky Goth halves.
  • Mele from Juken Sentai Gekiranger. While she could get deep-voiced, if the subject is about her Rio-sama, she starts getting perky and lovey-dopey. Also, during the mecha fights, while the commentator would seem to support the Gekirangers' mecha, Mele would cheer on the RinJyuKen monsters if they're gaining ground. She later develops into a full-fledged Love Martyr and plays a huge part in redeeming her and Rio.
  • The Power Rangers version has them too, but in different characters than in Sentai. Mele and Shizuka become the femmes fatale Camille and Miratrix, and Necrolai doesn't turn into a pair of Perky Goths likely due to budget. However, Power Rangers Ninja Storm has Marah and Kapri, the Big Bad's perky evil teen nieces.
• Jilly Kitzinger from Torchwood: Miracle Day is an incredibly perky but almost conscienceless corporate shill for the pharmaceutical company that caused the Miracle as part of a plan to seize power.
  Vera Juarez: This is disgusting.
  Jilly Kitzinger: [huge grin on her face] I KNOW!!
• Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego has Carmen's minion Jacqueline Hyde, whose name is a Jekyll and Hyde pun, and who shifts from this trope to a nasty devil in that style.

Radio

• Paula with Professor Nebulous in Nebulous — although Nebulous isn't evil, he's a humourless jerk of a Mad Scientist with a God-complex who once blew up the Isle of Wight because he wanted to move it to the right a bit. Despite this, Paula has an incredibly poorly-disguised infatuation with Nebulous, to the point that at one point, when Nebulous breaks his arm, Paula tries to kiss it better, prompting Nebulous to reply "Paula... that's my midriff". This is lampshaded with her surname — Breeze.

Roleplay

• Survival of the Fittest:
  • As an inversion, Jessa Vanallen is rather perky and upbeat... until she becomes Melina Frost's minion. Given the way Melina treats her, though, could you blame her?
  • A more played straight example would be Lizzie Nolan of the Mini site spinoff Evolution, who does the announcements detailing the subjects' horrible deaths in a rather... energetic fashion.

Tabletop Games

• Jolistina Susperio, an enemy in the Pathfinder module "The Curse of the Crimson Throne," is a cheerfully homicidal (and Too Kinky to Torture in the bargain) Villainous Harlequin who works for a less outgoing necromancer.

Theatre

• Even Musical Theater does not lack these girls! Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is meant to be an outgoing, fun, and lively counterpart to the brooding Sweeney. It makes her later acts of villainy even more horrifying.

Video Games

• Atlas Reactor has Kara St. James, aka NEV:3, who is the perky lab assistant of her boss Dr. Finn. In a departure, Kara is just as perky as most examples of this trope but her boss is a Fun Personified Pungeon Master himself: The two get along swimmingly because they're so similar.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt 2: Copen tends to hover between antihero and Villain Protagonist, and generally never lightens up. The AI for his attack drones, Lola, is playful, energetic, and expressive.
• EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance: Nemuri is a protagonist example of the Genki Girl type. Minion of Malice-sama, a high ranking ruler of the Demon World, sent to the Shakun Star to observe and report the Dark Force invasion. Her idea of stealth is to go on a full assault and is cheerful in her encounter with each new boss.
• Grandia has three of these; Nana, Saki, and Mio are ALL in love with the Colonel, and only fight with any effectiveness as a team. They are comically annoying even to their own side, but ultimately seem to be well-intentioned... Or at least intentioned alongside their boss. Who doesn't especially care for them.
• Another heroic example, loosely, is post-Heel–Face Turn Harley Quinn in Injustice 2. The Joker's final demise did wonders for Harley's morality (though not sanity by any conventional definition), but she serves Big Good Batman with the same bonkers cheer and deranged (though no longer murderous) energy she gave the Joker while he was alive. While Batman remains Batman.
• Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil: Tat, a cat, is upbeat and a mischief maker compared to her boss Leorina. She even gets flirty with Klonoa at one point.
• As of Mortal Kombat 9, Mileena counts. Her pre-match quote and some other lines display a childlike enthusiasm for violence, and she seems genuinely excited on fighting for her "father", the Obviously Evil Shao Kahn. One of the challenge tower missions involves her attempts to force Scorpion to accept a teddy bear that she made for him. She's still psychopathically Ax-Crazy though.
• Lash in Nintendo Wars. She plays it to the hilt when paired with The Stoic Enigmatic Minion Hawke in Dual Strike.
• Pilgrim (RPG Maker): Nekaneminorpe is pretty quirky and gets along with Akemi and Suu, wanting the former to be her 'sister'. She also likes listening to Japanese children's songs. Her boss, Master Alice, acts pretty cutesy but is a sadistic Humanoid Abomination.
• Cipher Admins Venus and Lovrina from Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness respectively. Venus styles herself as a pop diva and practically rules an entire town through broadcasted propaganda, while Lovrina has the appearance and mannerisms of a cute, ditzy Valley Girl type, but is in fact a psychotic Evil Genius. Both tend to favor conventionally 'cute' or 'pretty' Pokémon.
• Rival Schools' Project Justice has this in Momo, who serves Big Bad Kurow until he betrays her because of his failures. She's not all fun and rainbows, though, as she does show quite an evil streak.
• Tira from Soulcalibur is this to the grim and brutal Nightmare. Granted, she's pretty creepy and insane as well. Bonus points since he feeds her soul to Soul Edge in his story.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic has Vette, who is the Sith Warrior's slave and a smart-mouthed Twi'lek who usually has a quip on hand. Depending on how you play your character, you can either develop an actual friendship (or if you're male, a possible romance) or you activate her shock collar whenever she gets too mouthy.
• Super Paper Mario:
  • An inversion is Nastasia. Her boss, Count Bleck, is cheerful in embracing his over-the-top villainy and magician-like looks and personality, while Nastasia, the minion, is gloomy, precise, and organizes most of the actual plans.
  • Count Bleck has three other minions, one of them being Mimi, a perky female one to contrast the more enigmatic Dimentio. The third, a stereotypically Scottish big dumb guy called O'Chunks, is the comic relief of the trio.
  • The first two games had Kammy Koopa, who is much, much older than most examples of this character type.
• While Miss Pauling from Team Fortress 2 has yet to appear in-game, the official comics reveal her to be the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder to the mercenaries and the Morality Pet for The Administrator.
• Touhou Project has an all-female cast and most characters are introduced in an antagonistic role, so this shows up on occasion. The best example is probably Futo— Cheerful, dumb, likes fire, devoted to a supervillain...
• Both played straight and (knowing the game, deliberately) inverted with Undyne and King Asgore of Undertale, Undyne being the severe and aggressive warrior to Asgore's calm, genuinely sweet and caring role as the king. Also counts as a straight example, as Undyne is way more unhinged and zany compared to her boss, whose past deeds makes him feel like he should never be able to act lightheaded again, even if he wasn't actually the one to carry out the deed (which Undyne, apparently unflinchingly, carried out.)
• Uzuki from The World Ends with You is a good example when paired with the composer, especially when she giggles.

Visual Novels

• Despite being the hero, Phoenix Wright of the Ace Attorney series and his cohorts seem to attract these like moths to a light. Notables include Maya Fey, Ema Skye, Trucy Wright, Kay Faraday, and Athena Cykes.
• Danganronpa has an inversion with Izuru Kamukura, a dark, gloomy, and emotionless (but very powerful) henchman to his perky female boss, Junko Enoshima.
• Beatrice fills this role for the Longinus Dreizehn Orden in Dies Irae when compared to her direct superior Eleonore. She was the only officer who is not intimidated by Eleanor and had a plucky carefree air about her, something that exasperated the Crimson Knightess. Nonetheless Eleanor still ultimately treated her with integrity. Being a bubbly female officer in the Third Reich also makes her this by default.

Webcomics

• Mizuna of Adventurers! is the sister of one of the Action Girl protagonists and works for the Big Bad as her Evil Counterpart. She takes an upbeat, cheerful tone and seems excited at the opportunity to be a villain (she's been practicing! She kicked a kitten just a few days ago!), although even her boss thinks she's more misguided than evil — and this from a guy who's close to Harmless Villain territory on his own.
• Bangladesh DuPree from Girl Genius, who is an energetic airship-captain in the service of the stern Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. However, in a bit of an inversion, she's the Ax-Crazy one while her boss is a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Five Wave Fury from Keychain of Creation. She's so adorable you can almost forget that she's a shark-totem Full Moon Caste Lunar who's in love with an Abyssal working for the First and Forsaken Lion. And she has no problem with that.
• Mel Kelly of Narbonic is another perky minion who's more evil than the boss. Helen kills For Science!, and occasionally for Revenge, and in the main story it's really easy to talk her out of it. Mel kills because it's so much fun! It has also been shown that Mel is ready and willing to betray Helen and take power for herself if it'll allow her to kill more people. On the other hand, she does mellow out a bit in one possible future . . .
• NIMONA is all about one, the titular character who seeks to fill the role of evil sidekick to a man she sees as the textbook Evil Overlord. Fortunately, despite her attempts to fit the mold, both of them are more nuanced than that.
• Tsukiko from The Order of the Stick is the Perky Goth version of this. She hates living things and expects them to betray her at any opportunity, but she claims that The Undead are nice when you get to know them, and often acts like a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher towards them (except for her boss, Xykon, who she's in love with despite all the evidence he cares nothing for her).
• Greta Gravity from Spinnerette, assistant to the arch-villain Doctor Universe. Perky in more ways than one.

Web Original

• Khita from The Iron Teeth web serial. She's a young woman who is part of Herad's group of bandits. She has a perky personality and her actions are usually used as comic relief. No-one really takes her all that seriously, but she's also far from useless in a fight. She really likes her knives.
• Snarky, rude supervillainess Vamp, to her boss The Necromancer in the Whateley Universe. You know no one named The Necromancer is going to be a comedian.

Western Animation

• One episode of Aladdin: The Series had a group of Valkyries led by a no-nonsense warrior woman and her cheerful bumbling Brawn Hilda sidekick as a Fat and Skinny duo.
• The bubbly Ty-Lee of Avatar: The Last Airbender, created specifically to serve as comedic foil to both Mai and Azula. Unlike most examples, she doesn't follow Azula out of respect, but out of fear of her childhood friend.
• In Green Eggs and Ham, Gluntz of the BADGUYS is a hyperactive, often Cloudcuckoolander, contrast to her stoic boss McWinkle. Subverted in that the BADGUYS are not actually bad guys.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Like many portrayals, Harley initially served the role of the Joker's adoring moll and henchwoman. After finally being clued into the fact that the Joker never really cared about her at all and was just using her as a means to an end by an exasperated Poison Ivy, she sets out to defy this role and become an independent villainess in her own right.
• Hazbin Hotel: Niffty is a tiny adorable demon who is hyper, excitable and also the trusted minion of Alastor, one of the most feared and powerful Overlords of the Pride Ring.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot has an example in the form of Tammy. The Space Bikers attack Jenny's favorite place to hang out and introduce themselves in a very intimidating manner, but Tammy just gleefully says her name in a cheerful manner that causes everyone to pause. The leader sheepishly says "She's new..."
• Once she joins the Legion of Doom in season 9 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, young pegasus Cozy Glow is quite perky and upbeat in comparison to her co-conspirators, especially the brooding Tirek (whom she most often hangs around with) and the overly serious Big Bad Grogar.
• The vivacious Princess Entrapta becomes this after Season 1 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power to the Horde's humorless leader, Hordak.
• Mochi Mochiato from Sushi Pack, although this only showed up in the episode "Deep Freeze". Unlike the other members of the Legion of Low Tide, she is quite perky, a girly-girl through and through.
• Demencia from Villainous. Her boss Black Hat absolutely despises her tendency to flirt with him, but reluctantly views it as a necessary trade-off considering she's also his most powerful and loyal operative as a result.
• Ezor from Voltron: Legendary Defender to the other more serious generals working with Lotor. The fans don't refer to her as "Space Ty-Lee" for nothing!

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