Vampire Lolita Archetype

Don't let their sweet and innocent looks fool you.
Their true personas are tainted red... literally. ^note L - R, top to bottom: Evangeline A.K. McDowell, Shalltear Bloodfallen, Mina Tepes, Yue

The "Vampire Lolita Archetype" is typically about a subset of Stock Japanese Characters consisting of young-looking vampire girls that originated from Japanese Media. It was popularized by Remilia Scarlet from Touhou Project in 2002, who has since inspired many writers and artists to create similar characters in her wake.

These characters tend to be short, young-looking and elegant girls who are Really 700 Years Old, wear Elegant Gothic Lolita clothing, are Friendly Neighborhood Vampires of the Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain variety (although pure heroic and pure villainous examples can also exist), and are usually powerful rulers of a vampire clan of sorts, if not the World's Strongest Woman of their kind. Their personalities can vary, ranging from being a Tsundere to having a Sugar-and-Ice Personality. They may also have alternate age forms that they can change at will, usually transforming into older and mature adult forms to further cement their dominance over their adversaries. As a bonus, they may even be related to or are direct descendants of Count Dracula himself.

Appearance-wise, they share common traits such as red eyes and blonde hair (purple, pink and silver hair are also popular choices to a lesser extent), with the latter trait overlapping with Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold or Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon depending on personality and moral standing.

Their stories may explore the subject of Not Growing Up Sucks, with it implying that their childish behaviours are some kind of coping mechanism for their immortality preventing them from truly growing up and fitting into society beyond deliberate transformations.

The archetype has waned in popularity during the 2010s somewhat, but unlike similar trend-based archetypes, it's not a completely Discredited Trope yet and is still going strong in Japan well into the present day. Due to Values Dissonance, however, the Vampire Lolita Archetype is less well-received in the West because of potential lolicon subtext, but its influence can still extend to Western media to produce similar inspired characters.

Sub-trope of Our Vampires Are Different. Related to and commonly overlaps with Vampire Monarch for those who are princesses or have Ojou traits. Compare Undead Child and Cute Monster Girl. See also Succubi and Incubi, in which some succubi adopt this form in the mortal world.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• The Case Study of Vanitas: Chloé is a first-generation red-eyed vampire, making her one of the oldest and most powerful vampires alive in the setting. The disaster of the Tower of Babel turned her into a vampire when she was a child and her body stopped aging at eleven years old. She was born to the noble family d'Apchier from Gévaudan, although she's now the only surviving member after all her human relatives were massacred by the church under the suspicion that they were hiding a vampire. She has silver hair and of course, her wardrobe consists only of Elegant Gothic Lolita dresses.
• Dance in the Vampire Bund: Mina Tepes is the 400-year-old queen of vampires while possessing the body of a prepubescent girl with long blonde hair worn in Girlish Pigtails, often wearing a long Elegant Gothic Lolita dress. Her true form is a curvy naked woman.
• Karin: Anju Maaka is a preteen vampire girl with Elegant Gothic Lolita dresses, silver hair, and a very stoic demeanour, although she shows her warmer side to her older sister Karin. She's also considered a prodigy by her family for her extraordinary mastery of her vampiric powers for her young age.
• Sophie and Ellie from Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood are vampires who are several centuries old, but look like mere Elegant Gothic Lolitas. In fact, Akari, the human lead, mistakes Sophie for a life-sized doll when she first finds her sleeping in her coffin.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Evangeline A.K. McDowell is a 600-year-old True Ancestor vampire who was turned into one when she was ten years old. She has beautiful blonde hair and enjoys dressing in Elegant Gothic Lolita clothing. Being one of the most powerful mages ever, she has many titles that inspire fear in others. She's a very haughty and cynical Tsundere who claims to be a purely evil mage due to centuries of killing people who went after her for being a monster. She's also implied to have been royalty in her human life as she spent her childhood at a castle. Currently, she has two castles inside magic bottles and several dolls/robots serve as her maids. After being defeated by the protagonist, she eventually becomes his magic mentor and develops a small crush on him, revealing she isn't anywhere as bad as she makes herself out to be. Most of her magic has been sealed, but when at her full power, she can use illusions to make herself look like a busty, alluring woman.
• Seraph of the End: Krul Tepes is the third progenitor and vampire queen of Japan. She has pink hair, a young body, an elaborate Elegant Gothic Lolita dress, high power, and authority. 1,000 years ago, she was the daughter of a noble family, but her parents were killed by an angry mob that then sold Krul and her brother to slavery. Along with her brother, Krul was turned into a vampire by the first progenitor. She's also the vampire sire of the deuteragonist and acts as something of a Parental Substitute towards him.
• Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase: Hazuki is a rare Daywalking Vampire in her early teens who greatly prefers long dresses of the Elegant Gothic Lolita style and descends from a royal vampire lineage. She has long purple hair and is a Tsundere who treats her love interest like a slave.

Literature

• Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest: Yue is a very powerful 300-year-old vampire with long blonde hair, a prepubescent body and fancy clothing. She used to be royalty before she was imprisoned in a labyrinth for centuries. She also has a Sugar-and-Ice Personality, revealing her loving side only towards her love interest Hajime Nagumo.
• Bakemonogatari: Shinobu Oshino was originally a powerful vampire named Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade who has lived for more than 500 years. After she lost most of her powers, she appears as an eight-year-old blonde girl. By sucking blood, she can turn into an attractive young woman. Though Shinobu is more on the Growing Up Sucks side instead - her childish appearance is a Clipped-Wing Angel form that she's initially forced into but eventually comes to like her current state, because her normal state is a Statuesque Stunner so powerful and regal that it isolates her from others and prevents her from being herself.
• Played with in The Blood Princess And The Knight, which has a knight captured by a vampire lord and forcibly transformed into her "daughter", along with a healthy dose of Mind Rape to make him more subservient and willing to embrace vampiric tendencies. He managed to escape and return to a relatively low-profile life in the city, along with having enough power to return to his original male self; however, should he fail to satiate his thirst with blood (which he consumes from rationed packs rather than from fresh sources), he reverts back to his vampire princess form, who still possesses some of the same blood-thirsty and haughty tendencies "she" once had.
• Haganai: Kobato Hasegawa is an Affectionate Parody of the archetype, since her attempts to invoke it are really a result of her being a Chuunibyou. She's a 13-year-old normal human blonde girl who is a very big fan of an anime that stars a legitimate example of the archetype. Kobato loves the character so much that she always wears an Elegant Gothic Lolita cosplay and pretends to be a very powerful true ancestor vampire who has lived for 10,000 years.
• Interview with the Vampire: The young vampire girl Claudia is a case of Unbuilt Trope, having deconstructed the archetype decades before it was made and popularized by Japanese Media. Claudia was a dying human child who got turned into a vampire, with Lestat reckoning that this is better than allowing her to die. She then joins the two older male vampires as a child-companion. It takes some years before awareness of the awful reality sets in: a human child who becomes a vampire at eight or nine years old will never grow into physical maturity. She has an adult's mind, but will forever be treated like a child, never an equal, and all her attempts at looking and acting like an adult just make her look like a kid playing dress-up.
• Overlord (2012):
  • Shalltear Bloodfallen is an eternally young-looking True Vampire girl with silver hair^note light purple in the anime who wears a long Elegant Gothic Lolita dress. Her real form, however, isn't pleasant to look at.
  • Evileye, an over 250-year-old Vampire Princess with the body of a 12-year-old and strawberry blonde hair.
• Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?: Leticia Draculea is a pureblooded vampire and former Demon Lord who was stripped of her title and turned into a servant. She's over 1000 years old despite looking like a very young girl, has long blonde hair, and red eyes. She also changes into an attractive mature form when she's using more advanced magic.
• Shiki: Sunako was turned into a vampire at a young age, lived for two centuries, her family tried to house her but moved without telling her, leaving her by her lonesome. She loves to dress in Lolita clothing, has dark purple hair and, though she poses as the daughter of the Kirishiki family, is really the head vampire. Even though she's trying to kill all humans at a village, she's a sympathetic Anti-Villain whose goal is creating a place where she and her kindred can live peacefully. She also manages to form a close friendship with the town's priest.
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Luminous Valentine is an eternally young-looking Vampire Monarch, True Demon Lord, and worshipped "God" who is at least a thousand years old and all but certainly older, as by comparison to her fellow "Second Generation" Demon Lords Dagruel and Dino (who are both primordial beings who earned their titles later in their long lives) she could easily pass into the 10,000+ years range. Despite this, she physically resembles a beautiful pale teenager with long silver hair and heterochromia. Her preferred dress attire is gothic/lolita depending on her mood, and she does maid cosplay for disguise and fun. She's not the original vampire (she's technically the original's copy/"daughter"), but she is the oldest living one and consequently the strongest.

Live-Action TV

• Super Sentai: In Mahou Sentai Magiranger the Vampire Queen, Vancuria, can split herself into two human-looking vampire girls named Nai and Mea who are dressed in this style of clothing; she developed this ability due to always feeling lonely and friendless.

Toys

• Monster High: Draculaura fits in some of the traits, being the daughter of Dracula (in this rendition) and is one of the somewhat younger members of the group. She dresses in modern goth Lolita clothing.

Video Games

• BlazBlue: Rachel Alucard is the head of the Alucard vampire family. She has the looks of a preteen girl with blonde hair tied into Girlish Pigtails. Her behavior is dignified and arrogant, looking down on those she considers lower than her.
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Stella and Loretta are the Elegant Gothic Lolita dressed twins daughters of Brauner, the vampire lord in control of the demonic castle. Utterly loyal to their father, they fight the heroes to stop them from thwarting his plan of eradicating humankind.They are eventually revealed to be the daughters of Wind AKA Eric Lecard from Bloodlines. Brauner turned them into vampires to as a replacement of his daughters lost to World War I.
• Buttercup in Cute Bite isn't quite as frilly as some gothic lolitas, but she is well-dressed, looks like a child (until you can manage to cure her), and often acts like a spoiled princess.
• The Idolmaster has a song called "Kyun! Vampire Girl" about a girl that fits this archetype. The accompanying outfit My Dear Vampire also evokes the trope.
• Roselia Millstein in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel has many characteristics of the trope, such as the appearance of a blonde, red-eyed young girl in a fancy white dress. She possesses vampiric characteristics and a rather smug, brash attitude despite being Really 700 Years Old. Ironically, she isn't actually a vampire, but is in fact, the Divine Beast of Fire.
• Pandora's Halloween variant in Mega Man X DiVE was clearly designed with this trope in mind. She wears an Elegant Gothic Lolita dress with orange pumpkin details (including her parasol) and black bat motifs.
• While Scylla from Smite is normally a sea monster, her Vampiric skin turns her into this; she still retains her short stature and childlike voice, while she's decked out in a frilly blood-red dress, gains white hair contrasting with her unethical morality, and her wolf-tentacles become gigantic bats.
• Remilia Scarlet, the Final Boss of Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, is the first and most well-known example. Ruling as the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, she's a 500-year-old childlike vampire who controls fate and is known as the Scarlet Devil as when she feeds, the blood of her victims stains her dress scarlet. Unlike many other examples succeeding her, Remilia is Played for Laughs more than she exhibits any creepy or disturbing aspects. Her immortality is directly correlated with her inability to grow up, either physically or mentally, leaving it amply clear that behind a façade of class and elegance, Remilia is a Royal Brat with a bit of a chuunibyou streak, despite being a legitimately powerful vampire. Among other things, she claims to be descended from Vlad III Dracula, but it's a blatant lie. ZUN himself has acknowledged her status as one of the progenitors of this trope by stating that back in 2002, the powerful vampire Big Bad being a little girl was new and unique, but nowadays Remilia is just one in a crowd of similar vampire lolitas.
• Lilia Vanrouge of Twisted Wonderland is a fairy, not a vampire, but he's clearly designed after this trope with a Token Mini-Moe build, bat motif, Cute Little Fangs, a gothic lolita-inspired haircut, plus a quirky and childlike personality.

Visual Novels

• Libra Of The Vampire Princess: Iris Pumila is a 2000-year-old vampire progenitor who looks like a young girl with blonde Girlish Pigtails and wearing an Elegant Gothic Lolita dress.

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