Mini-Dress of Power



"A schoolgirl in a miniskirt, armed with nunchucks. Hot."

- Spoony on Selphie

An Action Girl, from minor to outright Badass, wearing a mini dress, either as a one-piece dress or as a top and miniskirt (for Bare Your Midriff). Often comes with color-coordinated boots ending just below the knee.

In comics it's not as popular as a Leotard of Power or a skintight suit, but other media take to it just fine, particularly Magical Girl and Magical Girl Warrior series.

Sometimes the dress will be simple, and other times it will be a Pimped-Out Dress. It can even start out simple and turn pimped-out through Frilly Upgrade. And the dress often has a Magic Skirt. If the dress is fancy enough, and the wearer Badass enough, it can overlap with Kicking Ass in All Her Finery.

While fighting in any kind of skirt is not the most practical idea ever (unless you're indifferent to Panty Shots - or wearing something underneath), this trope does reflect reality a little in that it's hard to run or kick when you're wearing a tight skirt that's knee-length or longer, and the longer the skirt is, the looser it has to be to avoid restricting motion.

Compare Sexy Santa Dress, Zettai Ryouiki, She's Got Legs, Leotard of Power, Superheroes Wear Tights, Dangerously-Short Skirt.

Anime & Manga

 * We could go the easy route and say most any Magical Girl will fall under this.
 * The senshi of Sailor Moon, playing with School Uniforms Are the New Black
 * The angels of Wedding Peach
 * Princess Tutu, by default, since a tutu is a mini dress.
 * Mew Mint in Tokyo Mew Mew.
 * Most of the girls of the Pretty Cure shows.
 * Several in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, such as Hayate and Teana, as well as Nanoha and Fate's first Barrier Jackets in StrikerS.
 * Pretty Sammy
 * In Mahou Shoujo Ai (Sexy Magical Girl), the eponymous heroine wears an extremely mini dress during her battles with demons. Being a Hentai title, this naturally lends to many a Panty Shot (among other things).
 * Princess Amue/Romelle of GoLion/Voltron wears a pink dress in the climactic battle.
 * Many of the outfits in Prétear, including An Ice Suit.
 * Jun "The Swan" in Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
 * Maka from Soul Eater, combined with Magic Skirt.
 * Both heroines from Noir, but especially Mireille.
 * Karin's Aphrodite transformation in Kamichama Karin.
 * Kiddy Grade's Éclair wears this.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima has a few, Chiu's current artifact costume (as well as the outfits Class Rep and Makie wore) fall under this most directly. Otherwise they often fall under this by wearing their uniforms into battle.
 * A frequent outfit of Panty in Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, mostly because she needs to take off her panties to battle.
 * The titular trio of Sweet Valerian wear these, even though they turn into bunny rabbits when they transform.
 * Fairy Tail, we have Lucy Heartfilia and Erza Scarlet.
 * Maya Kumashiro from Occult Academy is this and Zettai Ryouiki.
 * Ran-Mao in Black Butler.

Comic Books

 * X Men Jean Grey's second "Marvel Girl" outfit.
 * Supergirl
 * Catwoman had an outfit like this once or twice.
 * Nightshade
 * Mary Marvel, seen here, and here.
 * Lady Blackhawk (pictured here)
 * The Flash foe the Golden Glider, whose costume is based on a figure skater's outfit, and had white fur cuffs.
 * Both Silk Spectres from Watchmen
 * Wonder Woman, occasionally:
 * The Golden Age Wonder Woman's original outfit often looks like a skirt, but is really a pair of culottes, in a style that was fairly common for athletic young women at the time. After two issues, Wonder Woman started wearing the tight walking shorts that would remain for over a decade.
 * In the modern era, Wonder Woman sometimes wears skirted variants of her costume, usually either for a "formal" occasion or when gearing up for a really big battle.
 * Wonder Woman's mother, Hippolyta, was depicted as the Golden Age Wonder Woman in some modern stories, and "returning" to the role. She usually was depicted wearing a skirt.
 * The Teen Titans Go! version of Donna Troy wears this version of her classic red jumpsuit. (pictured here)
 * In Body Bags, Panda Delgado's Body Bagger "costume" is a cheerleader outfit with a pleated skirt that's almost too short to qualify as such. Many panty shots ensue, including when she's performing such strenuous activities as standing still.

Live Action TV

 * Xena: Warrior Princess
 * The girl rangers on Super Sentai usually wear skirt additions to the default (male) uniform (series where it's not the case include Bioman, Flashman and Dekaranger). The reason it didn't hold true for all female rangers in Power Rangers was that many of the Yellow Rangers...were originally men. This is for technical reasons, as even the female rangers were portrayed by stuntmen when morphed (who would otherwise have a very, uh, masculine bulge when wearing the spand...Bio-Armor).
 * Played with in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, where the heroes can borrow the powers of any Rangers who came before them. If applicable, the girls will have skirts and the guys won't, regardless of what the original costume was like. (This'll be fun when Power Rangers gets a hold of it, adding skirts to Yellow Rangers who were girls in the first place.)
 * The eponymous character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer wore these sometimes, usually with knee-high boots, in season one.
 * When Blue draws Holly J as a superhero in Degrassi, his choice of outfits for her falls under this.

Video Games

 * Adrianna in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance has several starting armor sets that follow this pattern.
 * Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII
 * Lani the Bounty Hunter in Final Fantasy IX.
 * Female Squires, Archers, Geomancers, and Mimes in Final Fantasy Tactics.
 * Ritz and the Viera Archer class in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
 * Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII.
 * From the Soul Series games: Sophitia, Cassandra, and Amy (in her fur-trimmed Elegant Gothic Lolita dress).
 * Millenia from Grandia II
 * Ms. Liberty (also her mother, Miss Liberty, and Mirror Universe Evil Counterpart, Dominatrix) in City of Heroes. Naturally, player characters have this as an option as well.
 * Ada and Jill of the Resident Evil games each have at least one mini dress outfit.
 * Alis, the heroine of the first Phantasy Star I.
 * The RAcaseal class (android gunner girls) from Phantasy Star Online has metal plates cut to be like a mini skirt, but not completely so it overlaps with Showgirl Skirt.
 * In Jade Empire, the female Fragile Speedster class model wears a sort of sleeveless tunic that barely covers her hips and no pants. The NPC Dawn Star has a similar outfit, but with sleeves and four long ribbons hanging down from her waist.
 * Shepard (if you play as a woman) acquires a mini-style Little Black Dress in Mass Effect 2 for an infiltration mission (part of the Kasumi's Stolen Memories DLC). After the mission, she can still wear it as her "casual" outfit on board the Normandy. Being Shepard, she still looks very Badass in it.
 * Bad Girl of the first No More Heroes.
 * Amy Rose wears one of these.
 * Dragon Quest has had more than a few opportunities to dress your characters like this; Dragon Quest IX is the most noticeable since your equipment decisions actually show up on your character in 3D, giving you an ample view of your female party members' bikinis and bustiers. (They actually do make really good armor choices much of the time, since they often take this trope literally by increasing your spell power.)
 * Caitlyn, the Sherrif of Piltover from League of Legends, with the addition of Too Many Belts.
 * Kairi from Kingdom Hearts II can qualify
 * Cecille of Arc Rise Fantasia goes after enemies with her fists.
 * All of the female party members in Legend of Dragoon (Shana's a completly straight example, Rose has a sort of petal skirt and Miranda has a skirt of the same length as Shana, but her boots make it Zettai Ryouiki).

Webcomics

 * In Kid Radd, Sheena has a minidress, and does get more active when she's out of the game. Plus her counterpart in the second game has a Super Mode in a French Maid outfit.
 * Tip from Skin Horse wears these on occasion, among his ever-shifting (but always made-for-women) wardrobe. His last job was in the Army; he isn't there anymore for obvious reasons relating to unit cohesion.
 * And Tip does have a superpower: he's a Kavorka Man irresistible to the female gender.
 * The Gender Bender heroine of Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki
 * Wonderella's mother wears one.
 * Alex of Angel Moxie.
 * El Goonish Shive: Elliot's superhero spell turns him into a girl with Stock Super Powers, with this trope along with Bare Your Midriff.

Web Original

 * The only actual example of this trope in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe is the costume worn by Heart Girl. She's a nine-year-old Flying Brick and just cute as a button.

Western Animation

 * She Ra
 * Princess Goleeta of Galtar and the Golden Lance
 * The Superman: The Animated Series version of Supergirl had the top and skirt version up until her final appearance on Justice League.
 * American Maid of The Tick (animation) wore a dress looking like the US flag.
 * Every one of the Winx Club girls - the fairies in their transformation outfits and the Trix witches when they aren't wearing their battle uniforms.
 * The Fireside Girls from Phineas and Ferb.
 * Dr. Girlfriend, when she went by that name, wore a pink minidress that suggested a sexied-up Jackie Kennedy - the button arrangement resembled a medical doctor's smock.
 * Starfire from Teen Titans wears the Bare Your Midriff variation of this.