Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Anime and Manga
- Ai-Ren: Ai has been especially brought back to life to accompany the male protagonist during his last days. Her looks and personality follow the rules of this trope to a T, but, alas for the boy, she is of the variety that dies before he does.
- In Angel Beats! Heaven's Door, Hinata is at first a bit put off by Yuri's violent behaviour and awkward social skills, but in the end she's the one who gives him a goal and a will to struggle in his afterlife. For this reason, not only he but everyone else who later joins their group is eager to put up with her ridiculous plans and her moments of Insane Troll Logic. It helps that more often than not, said ridiculous plans end up working.
- Anohana The Flower We Saw That Day: Menma becomes this for Jinta, former leader of a group of childhood friends that have drifted apart due to the loss of one of their friends. Subverts the usual Second Love part as Menma is the friend that died, and she came to Jinta for help accomplishing some unfinished business that's preventing her from moving on.
- Ashita Dorobou has an interesting variant of this trope. Might be a Deconstructed Character Archetype of sorts. Straitlaced protagonist Kyouichi Miyasako, 30 years old, broke up with his quirky, free-spirited girlfriend Ashita Tendou way back in college, and has been haunted by regret ever since. Suddenly, with a UFO hanging in the sky over Tokyo, she returns to him, wearing the same maid costume she was wearing when he dumped her, and she hasn't aged a day. He tentatively accepts her back into his life, even though something feels off about the whole situation.
- Battle Angel Alita protagonist Alita went trough a period of almost obsessive MPDG behavior when she fell madly in love with a boy named Yugo, during which she was even willing to die for him. Unfortunately, it is Yugo who died at the exact moment Alita dragged him out of his shell.
- In Boys over Flowers, Shigeru Ookawahara tried to be this to Domyouji, her arranged fiancé. However, after he flat out tells her that he isn't in love with her and never will be, she becomes devoted to keeping Tsukushi and Domyouji together.
- In Brave10, Saizo is pretty much being dragged around by Isanami from their first meeting although she is sometimes more of a Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl.
- Subverted in Case Closed. The love of Inspector Shiratori's life is a strong-willed, outspoken girl whom he met when they were children, and her incredibly cheerful antics are what motivated him to become a policeman in the first place. Then we see that this was their first and only encounter in almost twenty years, that Shiratori chased after another woman because he mistakenly thought she was said girl, and that "the girl" actually grew into a much more thoughtful and quiet person, the local Cool Teacher Kobayashi-sensei. Despite all these changes, they still fall in love and get together.
- Yuu Watase plays with this trope in Ceres, Celestial Legend with Chidori Kuruma. Although she has way more depth of character than the average MPDG (taking care of her sick younger brother and such), she tries to win over Yuuhi's heart with her child-like enthusiasm. However, although they end up being good friends, Yuuhi never loves her back, since he was already in love with The Heroine Aya. Their relationship ends tragically when Chidori dies in his arms shortly before the end of the story.
- Chrono Crusade: Depressed demon is discovered by an absurdly stubborn Genki Girl just after getting through the Mayfly–December Romance from Hell. However, it's Rosette's life that goes completely pear-shaped upon the chance meeting.
- In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Lucy puts on an air of this during their initial meetings, particularly when she rides the stretcher David is on out of the back of a moving ambulance into traffic while laughing her head off. But this turns out to largely be an act to get on David's good side. Her more normal state is more brooding and withdrawn, partially fed by her fears about David dying and her fears about Arasaka turning him into a lab rat later on when she learns about the info they have on him about halfway through the series.
- Hotaru in Dagashi Kashi is not only a fairly textbook example of this for male lead Kokonotsu, but even looks a lot like his "ideal" girl he's been drawing in his manga.
- The Dangers in My Heart has a rather Zig-Zagged example in Yamada. She's an positive, attractive and somewhat out-there young girl who's a positive influence in Ichikawa's life and motivates him (indirectly or otherwise) to grow past his isolated and insecure nature. That said, they started out as just being aware of each-other at the start of the series and developed their relationship overtime. In fact, Yamada started actively socializing with Ichikawa after he did enough to attract her attention. She also has her own life and set of issues that Ichikawa helps her reconcile with arguably as much as she does him.
- Cloudcuckoolander Shiro in Deadman Wonderland was ultimately a Deconstructed Character Archetype. She portrays herself this way to Ganta, but it's all an act she puts on. Truth is, she was a yandere who functionally destroyed his life, then insinuated herself back into it and played up this version of herself on purpose to get close to him.
- Death Note has an interesting subversion, and probable deconstruction. Misa Amane is a Genius Ditz Perky Goth with a mad zest for life and a Mad Love for the uptight Broken Ace Light Yagami. Unfortunately for her, Light has no intention of falling in love, and finds her antics both obnoxious and exasperating. He does, however, play along in order to use her shinigami eyes.
- Fate/strange Fake: Saber is a male version with a twist. Saber, like most Manic Pixie Dream Guys, is impulsive, adventurous, relentlessly optimistic, charmingly idiosyncratic, pops into Ayaka's life at her lowest and most depressed, and is literally a magical Knight in Shining Armor that exists for Ayaka's sake. The problem? It turns out that Saber is Richard the Lionheart, and Manic Pixie Dream Guys make for rather poor rulers…
- FLCL:
- Haruko seems like one of these, attaching herself to soulful brooding main character Naota and being the main impetus behind his Coming of Age Story. Up until it's subverted by the reveal that she had her own agenda all along and her wacky hijinks were part of a plan to manipulate Naota until he'd served his purpose and she's not really all that interested in him as a person at all — the 'Character Development' she inspired in him was either incidental or (mostly) part of the plan (although her last few lines suggest that she's genuinely taken a liking to Naota, even if her own personal mission took top priority.)
- Mamimi is a deconstruction, as her strange actions and her inappropriate advances on Naota are signs that she has serious issues of her own to work out.
- Flunk Punk Rumble subverts this. The girl forces him to help under the pretext of being the class president, making the life of the Delinquent loner hell with her hare-brained attitude and well-meaning schemes. She's only bugging him because she used to be a delinquent herself and can't relate to anyone else.
- In Food Wars!, it turns out that Soma's mother Tamako was this to his father Joichirou. Although her family owned a restaurant, Tamako was a Lethal Chef who came up with bizarre food combinations and recipes which only sometimes turned out decent. Despite this, she never gave up on cooking and had geniune fun doing it. Her crazy combinations of ingredients without any fear of failure, not to mention her energy and charisma, snapped her to-be husband from his depression and motivated Joichiro to put his heart into cooking again after the pressure of always trying to live up to people's high expectations caused him to burnout and he lost his passion for cooking.
- Fujimi Lovers: If it were any perspective but Jun Kouno's, he definitely fits the trope. His predicament makes it so his first and always tragic love, Rino Hasebe, disappears from existence the moment she falls for him. Throughout his life he encounters multiple Hasebes, proclaiming his love for them out of the blue, insisting on getting his feelings through to them, and barging his way into their lives to help them through their personal struggle, which almost always leads to the Hasebes (re)discovering what it means to love.
- Gatchaman Crowds: Hajime Ichinose is an unusual example in that she is both the protagonist and plays this role to her entire team rather than just one person. She's energetic and optimistic to the extreme, encouraging everyone to expand their horizons.
- In Hanamori Pink's short manga Get Nude, sloppy delinquent Subaru is the Manic Pixie Dream Boy to strait-laced Student Council President Misao.
- Goodnight Punpun: Punpun tries to invoke this with the pretty New Transfer Student Aiko. Emphasis on "tries". Aiko's just as miserable as him, if not worse, and being in each other's lives screws everything up even more. Punpun is Loving a Shadow for much of the series and imagines Aiko in ways that she isn't. The manga ends up deconstructing the trope badly. They run off together but Aiko later kills herself. Punpun tries to, but fails and loses an eye. He's still miserable at the end of the manga.
- Gravitation: Shuichi Shindou is Manic Pixie Dream Boy to Eiri Yuki. While he's actually the main character, his life revolves around drawing Yuki out of his shell to such an extent that everything else, even his singing career, takes a backseat to their relationship.
- Hello! Sandybell: Gender inverted example. Kitty is a stuck up Alpha Bitch, but she falls for the Hot-Blooded, badass Alec Peterson. Unlike her, he comes from a broken home and is poor. She doesn't even care that he slapped her because he found her annoying - after he rescues her from kidnappers, she falls for him and they get married.
- Isabelle of Paris: Irma became close to Andréa after she rescued him from the throes of death. Being a wealhy bourgeioisie man, there were many things he did not know until she told him, as she was a Hot Gypsy Woman who was raised in a circus.
- I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: A Reconstruction. The narrator becomes part of Sakura's life, but not the center of it. She has a family, other friends she spends time with, and a best friend who naturally sees the narrator as an interloper. She needs something from him — a friend who won't overreact to her illness. And, it develops, she wants to learn something from him. Most of all, they share a friendship, not a romantic relationship. (Friendship-with-benefits is on the table, but they have only teenage-level maturity to handle it.) The characters acknowledge it might have become a romantic relationship, given enough time.
- K:
- In the anime, Shiro and Neko are both this for Kuroh. At first, Neko seems to fit this exactly for both of them, showing up in Shiro's room naked and declaring herself to be his cat, but Shiro has a lot of this himself. And Shiro is much more of a love interest to Kuroh, with both of them seeing Neko as somewhere between a pet and a little sister.
- In the novel Lost Small World, Misaki Yata is this for Saruhiko Fushimi, when they were in middle school. Something of a deconstruction, because — in addition to being a male/BL example — when they join the Red Clan, Misaki fits in with them much better than Saruhiko does, causing Saruhiko to begin to resent him. When Saruhiko meets the Blue King, and realizes he would fit into the Blue Clan better than the Red, Misaki doesn't understand him at all, and considers him a traitor, setting up for where their relationship is at the time of the series.
- In K-On!, Ritsu and Yui act as Manic Pixie Dream Girls to Mio and Azusa, respectively.
- Kakegurui: Deconstructed with protagonist Yumeko Jabami. She sweeps into Hyakkaou Private Academy and immediately shakes things up, saving Suzui from his debts and forging many a Fire-Forged Friendship with fellow students. But her obsession with gambling is taken to extremes that terrify just about everyone, getting off on the thrill of risking it all and unconcerned with whether she wins or loses. She's repeatedly dragged her friends into these high-risk games, risking freedom and life itself for a thrill. When confronted about how she's ruined so many lives, she admits that she doesn't feel any remorse. For a bonus, her name even means "Snake-devouring Dream Girl", hinting at her dangerous nature.
- Michiru is an almost literal example from Kono Kanojo wa Fiction desu, to a frightening extent.
- Kotoura-san: Manabe brings Haruka out of her shell with his love of life, wacky antics, and copious amounts of perverted Imagine Spots.
- Mars (1996) has a deconstructed example. Rei Kashino is the energetic, carefree, and slightly eccentric partner to the passive, emotionless, and repressed Kira, teaching her how to be more assertive and stick up for herself. However, his "eccentricities" tend towards reckless and violent behavior that often gets himself in trouble and hurts those around him, including manic mood swings and outright sociopathic tendencies. In addition, though he does love Kira, he finds her passivity deeply frustrating, at one point breaking up with her because he finds being with her draining and limiting. Finally, as much as Kira learns from him, she teaches Rei how to care more about those around him and to treasure his own life more.
- My Dress-Up Darling: Played with, if not downplayed. Male lead Wakana Gojo is a loner who's dedicated his entire life to his Hina doll making, and keeps to himself out of fear of being ostracized for it. Things change when the cheerful and lively Gyaru Girl Marin Kitagawa discovers his talents in making clothes, and drags him into making costumes for her to live her dreams of being a cosplayer. So while there are many similarities to other MPDG stories, Gojo's role throughout the story is to support Marin in pursuing her hobby.
- My Lovely Ghost Kana: The eponymous Cute Ghost Girl is much more of a Genki Girl on the surface, but she and Daikichi play this role for each other. Daikichi starts the series contemplating suicide after a run of terrible luck, and happens to move into an apartment "haunted" by Kana, who manages to talk him out of it with her unique perspective, having successfully committed suicide years earlier with considerable dissatisfaction. Eventually, Kana convinces Daikichi that life is precious, and Daikichi's friendship cheers Kana immensely after years of solitude. Later, Kana deliberately plays the trope towards Inagawa up to a point.
- Nodame Cantabile: Megumi Noda fits this description, but her chosen inspire-ee, Chiaki, mostly wishes she'd just go away. Too bad she lives in the next apartment over, goes to his music school, and starts calling him her husband a few chapters in. Nodame's also such a manic pixie that she can't take proper care of herself at all, necessitating Chiaki to feed her and keep her apartment from turning into the Trash of the Titans.
- Subverted, because while she is instrumental in motivating Chiaki to take his musical career further, she is very much a well-rounded character of her own. Her development later on in the series shows this very clearly.
- Onani Master Kurosawa: Takigawa Magister is the first to get the eponymous onanist out of his shell.
- The energetic Jyushimatsu plays a male example in episode 9 of Osomatsu-san. While practicing his baseball swing, he meets a depressed, unnamed country woman ready to jump off a cliff. His wacky antics and funny personality make them become quick friends. Their relationship ends tragically when the girl has to return to her city on the day Juushimatsu was planning to confess to her, no less.
- In keeping with Ouran High School Host Club's theme of gender reversal, Tamaki Suoh is a the story's Manic Pixie Dream Boy, encouraging the shy and self-reliant Haruhi to come out of her shell, and the bookish Kyouya to loosen up a bit.
- Paprika: Paprika's job is being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for men: a sprightly therapist who joins them in their dreams and takes them on surrealist adventures. In her daily life, she sees herself only as a dull, proper scientist and ignores the spontaneous part of herself too much.
- Pita-Ten: Misha is this toward Kotarou. In the anime she's just doing it because she believes it's what an angel should do, in the manga it's originally because Kotarou is the reincarnation of his granduncle Kotaroh, the boy she loved who committed suicide.
- Princess Jellyfish has a rare genderswap. Kuranosuke is a Wholesome Crossdresser who meets the protagonist, a socially awkward and shy manga artist, when he helps her save a jellyfish. In this case, it's romantic however Tsumiki originally doesn't realize that Kuranosuke likes her. She's more interested in his brother.
- Puella Magi Oriko Magica: Kirika Kure is a childish, scatterbrained Love Freak for the eponymous magical girl, and became a Living Emotional Crutch for Oriko after her family's fall from grace. She's also the attacker in the magical girl murders. And she admits to Oriko, after being fatally wounded, that the Manic Pixie persona was a charade fuelled by Kirika's own wish to become someone Oriko would love.
- Another male example: Samurai Flamenco has its very main character, Masayoshi, become this to Goto after a fateful meeting in a dark alley, dragging him into his superhero antics and taking him out of his mundane, boring life. Goto having a girlfriend already doesn't change things. And then it even fits the Second Love aspect of this trope, as Goto's girlfriend is revealed to have gone missing years ago, and he'd been texting himself since then.
- Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai is about a weary middle school girl named Nagisa Yamada, who plans on joining the army instead of going to high school. The weird New Transfer Student, Mokuzu Umino, takes a liking to Nagisa and wants to be her friend. Mokuzu insists that she is a mermaid and that if she doesn't make friends before the next hurricane she will die; Nagisa obviously doesn't believe her but Mokuzu keeps tagging alongside her and that's the start of their friendship... It turns out Mokuzu isn't in a very good situation herself though. She has a very Dark and Troubled Past involving her abusive father and her mother leaving them. She needs saving herself for much more serious reasons. Nagisa and Mokuzu try to runaway but Mokuzu ends up killed by her father.
- Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei parodies this with Fuura Kafuka, the ridiculously upbeat Cloudcuckoolander, and Nozomu Itoshiki, a man who is always in despair. However, the show is adamant about not giving anyone any Character Development whatsoever... And even if they did, Kafuka's methods wouldn't develop anybody's character, save possibly making them clinically insane... or dead.
- Sing "Yesterday" for Me: The young, quirky (she has a pet crow! she likes to stay out late at night!), determined Haru is a breath of fresh air in Rikuo's life, and once he meets her he gets out of his funk and decides to do more with himself. Despite livening up Rikuo's life, Haru has little development of her own, and it's unclear what her goals and motivations are besides getting together with Rikuo. The anime hints at things that would give her more depth, like an uneasy relationship with her parents and the fact that she dropped out of high school, but these plot threads are never given resolution, and she ends up being defined mostly by her relationship with Rikuo.
- Mihoshi Akeno in Sora no Manimani, who has a touch of Unlucky Childhood Friend running through her in addition to being a hyperactive girl who wants to get broody book-reading protagonist Saku out into the world of the Astronomy Club.
- Tenchi Muyo!: Ryoko is about as manic and pixie as girls can get (perhaps moreso, as in many continuities she's engineered thus), and livens up Tenchi's life in a way he quickly becomes addicted to, but also demonstrates a Logical Weakness in MPDGs; Those lovable personality traits have led her to become a career criminal with absolutely zero impulse control.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Kamina is a PARAGON OF MASCULINITY version of this for his bro, the shy, Shrinking Violet main character Simon. He's zany, wacky, ballsy, crazy, and encourages Simon toward the Call to Adventure, setting the series into motion. Sadly, he ends up dying in order to move the plot along, leaving Simon in a manic and depressive state. Hinted to be a subversion when Kamina is often unable to power Gurren with his Heroic Spirit despite outwardly raring to fight, and confirmed when Kamina admits to Yoko in confidence that his bravado is mostly an act, that he maintains by witnessing Simon's budding potential and extreme perseverance when all seems lost. Simon's resolute determination when supplied with only the slimmest sliver of hope empowers Kamina to construct a facade of optimism and (over)confidence, which in turn acts as a source of hope Simon can cling to. Believe in the me who believes in you indeed.
- Nia, who replaces Kamina in this role after his death. She ends up being the one to bring Simon out of his depression and serves as his strongest supporter teaching him to believe in himself directly. She dies at the end, minutes after marrying Simon post Timeskip, resulting in Simon Walking the Earth from then on to fill the world with flowers in her memory.
- Played with in Tokyo Ghoul. Banjou recalls Rize as a strong-willed, free-spirited dream girl that inspired him to take chances and live freely. His feelings for her blind him to the fact that Rize was a sociopath that only cared about herself, leaving ruin in her wake and completely unconcerned with how her actions impacted others. She made a pattern of causing problems in a Ward, and then fleeing it the moment her actions attracted attention from the human authorities — leaving others to deal with the consequences, while she moved to another Ward to continue enjoying herself. In fact, Rize's disregard for the rules of the 11th Ward and killing of its leaders for trying to reign her in, allowed Aogiri Tree to move in on the ward and enslave the local Ghoul population.
- Undead Unluck has the trope on both sides concerning the protagonists Andy and Fuuko.
- Andy is a male example toward Fuuko, being boisterous, lively, and reckless. Fuuko in the beginning was about to kill herself due to Unluck, which had already killed her parents and the passengers on the plane they were on when she was eight. Taking an interest in said ability as being the key for him to finally die, Andy interrupts her suicide attempt leading to Fuuko getting dragged into the world of Negators, UMAs, and god-slaying with the goal of getting Fuuko to fall in love with him to give a fatal stroke of Unluck. In the process, Fuuko regains her will to keep living and grows into a confident and determined individual willing to fight for the sake of the life she was deprived. He's also a deconstructed example as the reason why he's the way he is because of both his despair over being unable to die and the guilt and pain from outliving everyone he grew to care about, to the point he used suicide as a means to cope with the fact.
- Fuuko meanwhile is an inverted example to Andy as while Andy initially saved her as a means to kill himself, Fuuko's determination and boundless kindness toward others and meeting them half-way slowly influences Andy to be able to start bonding and caring for others in turn and him starting to develop genuine feelings toward Fuuko.
- Video Girl Ai: This trope is explored in the manga. Ai and the other Video Girls are supposed to be sort-of Robot Girl versions this, created specifically to comfort young and kind-hearted persons in trouble, and supposed to comfort them without thinking of anything similar to their own agency... but Ai being played in a defective VCR actually kickstarts her acquiring emotions of her own and questioning her role. Which then starts a sort-of snowball to roll, since her creator Rolex wants to eliminate and/or manipulate her as it first his purpose, while Youta and the old man from the Gokuraku Store rebel against this and think that Ai and other Video Girls are deserving of their own emotions and being more than just this trope. It also deconstructs the role of the man in this sort of relationship, as it is heavily hinted that while a standard Video Girl would give "pure-hearted" boys like Youta the fun-loving companionship and comfort they need, said boys would never grow as independent people, nor gain the emotional maturity to enter a real relationship. Furthermore, while "customers" know that a Video Girl's love is artificial from the get-go, they're so desperate for affection that a VG's devotion and unconditional affection would win them over regardless, and make them incapable of the real thing in the long run. On the other hand, it is explicitly shown (as an experiment from Rolex with Video Girl Mai) that equally lonely, brooding, but not-quite-pure-hearted boys would succumb to a severely codependent relationship and would end up broken even worse than they started.
- Your Lie in April has Kaori who plays this role for the depressed Kousei. She inspires him to get back into playing the piano after he quit due to his mother's death several years ago. Slightly subverted in the fact that she has a similar story of trauma in her past — having been ill from an early age — and she's consciously being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in order to help Kousei get through his problems. Further subverted in that the ending shows that it was her goal to play violin with Kosei accompanying her, so getting him out of his funk fulfills her dream as much as it helps him. She also actively pursues classical music on her own terms.
