Magical Girlfriend



"She's the heart of the funfair She's got me whistling her private tune And it all begins where it ends And she's all mine, my magic friend ''She says: "Hello, you fool, I love you Come on join the joyride.""

- Roxette, "Joyride"

Called Mahou Kanojo in Japan, this is the genre of adolescent male Wish Fulfillment, and has become rather popular in recent years.

The hero is usually a geeky loser, terribly unlucky at love. He is either unable to get a date at all, or has had his sensitive poet's heart broken by a cruel bitch who was only toying with his affections, forcing him to withdraw from all feminine companionship. Exactly how strongly this is exaggerated depends on the writers.

However, because he is a genuinely good and kind person, fate smiles upon him—the perfect girl for him enters his life. She is beautiful, kind, domestic, and utterly and eternally devoted to him. However, she's often not exactly human by most definitions—she is a Goddess, a Demon, or a Vampire, or an Extraterrestrial, or an Angel, or a Robot, or a Ghost, or a virtual being born of an advanced computer program, or under a spell/curse, or an immortal sorceress, or some combination of any or all of the above. Sometimes the term is just metaphorical, although this is usually used in a critical way implying she's too good to be true.

Of course the path of true love never runs smoothly (especially since she loves you and everybody) but the pairing of dork and demigoddess runs into especially large bumps—usually comedic ones. Despite this and his initial misgivings, though, true love blossoms for the once-hapless hero. May or may not include Closet Sublet.

Entries in this genre often come packed with generous quantities of Fan Service, but this is by no means mandatory. Sometimes it overlaps with The Unwanted Harem, but requires more Willing Suspension of Disbelief, since her popularity is obvious.

In dramatic examples, Magical Girlfriends are ironic blessings. No matter how much she insists, she will tend to give the guy an inferiority complex about himself and being unworthy. Conversely, Magical Girlfriends often feel they cause more problems than they solve, and the guy is just putting up with them due to niceness. Of course, her family almost always gets involved; and rest assured they will get in the way as much as possible.

Magical Girlfriend series show up in Shonen, but seem to skyrocket in popularity within the Seinen crowd. There are a couple of Shojo series too, one being Yuu "Fushigi Yuugi" Watase's Gender Flipped Magical Boyfriend series Absolute Boyfriend, another being Naoko "Sailor Moon" Takeuchi's Orphaned Series Toki Meca in which the robot girl is intended as the "best friend" of the female protagonists.

Just as the Magical Girls genre was inspired by Bewitched, it seems likely that both that show and I Dream of Jeannie are somewhere in the DNA of the Magical Girlfriend.

Compare and contrast with Manic Pixie Dream Girl. See Well, Excuse Me, Princess! for when the Magical Girlfriend wakes up to how much of a geeky loser her love interest is and begins calling him on it, and Action Girlfriend if she's more action-oriented than magical. May overlap with Boy Meets Ghoul. See Divine Date: a variation that is often use to appeal to female audiences as much as male.

Anime and Manga
"Hideki: "You hear about it all the time...a guy finds a nice girl, takes her home...she's always cute of course...then it turns out she's got some sort of special powers...and she falls madly in love with the guy!""
 * Pictured are awkward, mistreated Nice Guy Keiichi and his Magical Girlfriend, pure-hearted, wish-granting goddess Belldandy of Ah! My Goddess (Or Oh My Goddess!, as the Manga is called in the U.S.), who fit every basic aspect of the Trope to a "T". The passion of their relationship, the depth of their characters (and the characters around them), and the emphasis on drama and comedy depends on the incarnation (a 1994 OVA, two one-season, late 2000s TV series, and the original manga which was in publication from 1988 to 2014).
 * Parodied in episode 8 of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, in which Sasshi and Arumi enter a dating-sim world in which Sasshi has to gain the stereotypical moe girl's heart. She later reveals that she is, and also with an unnecessarily complicated name.
 * A.I. Love You, the first manga from the creator of Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima, was a textbook example of this, with a lightning strike bringing a lonely geek's homebrew AI (which fit on a single floppy!) to life. The early chapters heavily played on the wish fulfillment, but later ones increasingly subvert it.
 * Chobits
 * Hideki even Lampshades with some serious Genre Savvy-ness (in the second chapter of all places, summing up this trope as if he wrote the page on it himself.

"Kyon: Looks good on you."
 * Video Girl Ai, though the idea a magical girlfriend seems too good to be true invokes a slightly darker intepretation.
 * Maburaho
 * UFO Princess Valkyrie
 * Mahoromatic
 * Saber Marionette J also features an Unwanted Harem of Robot Girls.
 * Sekirei where the protagonist gets himself five Magical Girlfriends, if you count the loli.
 * Steel Angel Kurumi—although the boy in question isn't geeky; he's merely a bit too young for girls yet.
 * In Steel Angel Kurumi 2, the Magical Girlfriend is coupled with someone of a bit more appropriate age—who also happens to be another girl.
 * Subverted in Midori no Hibi: the guy is a tough fighter-type whose reputation frightens away girls, and the girlfriend is an ordinary girl who's always wanted him; neither knows how or why they've been, um, linked together.
 * Midori isn't really a magical girlfriend, she's just a girl who sorta got her wish granted through "magical" means. Not saying that its not "wish fulfillment," though I personally don't think it is (at least not the anime), but Midori is a normal girl within the context of the story.
 * Gender-flipped and subverted in Brigadoon Marin and Melan. Marin is a Happily Adopted Heartwarming Orphan who falls in massive trouble when bionic machines called Monomakia fall from the sky reflecting another world and attack her for unknown reasons. Enter Melan Blue, a Gunswordsman monomakia that arrives to act as her protector. Subverted as Marin is only 13 years old and Melan Blue is dedicated to his duty to protect Marin, the duo fall slowly for each other throughout the course of the series.
 * Magikano - a witch who will lose her powers unless she awakens the protagonist's latent magical powers, and his sisters who are also witches (and in one case a Love Rival).
 * Elfen Lied, heavily deconstructed. Lucy certainly loves Kohta, but due to her traumatic childhood spent bullied for being different, Lucy's magic only seems to be good for exterminating humans.
 * Saikano doesn't just deconstruct this trope, it mutilates it several times over and defecates on the corpse.
 * Played with by the Black Lagoon fandom and Omake. Rock is a Japanese ex-salaryman while Revy is a sporty, free-spirited woman who comes into his life. But since it's a pulpy Seinen show, "Magical Girlfriend" is defined as a Heroic Sociopath in cutoff shorts who goes around looting and shooting at people—including Rock, who was kidnapped during their introduction.
 * Urusei Yatsura famously parodied the Magical Girlfriend genre back in the seventies (long before there was actually such a genre) by having the Unlucky Everydude be a slovenly, pitifully desperate pervert who likely deserves all the trouble he goes through and the alien princess a Tsundere who loves him despite his lechery, but isn't adverse to zapping him with her electrical powers when he strays, as well as being somewhat bumbling, usually causing more problems then she solves. Add to this that he already had a girlfriend he liked better.
 * Tenchi from Tenchi Muyo! definitely fits the whole Unlucky Everydude trope. The main differences are; A) He gets A Whole Bunch Of Magical Girlfriends, B) He's too much of a Nice Guy to head to the Tenchi Solution with any kind of speed, and C). The girlfriends are actual people with all the complications thereof. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl? A Space Pirate with a price on her head several dozen orders of magnitude greater than Earth's combined GNP. The Princesses? One's a bossy, prudishly-repressed proto-dominatrix; the other's a loli who happens to be and they're both half-sisters of his grandfather. The cute lil' Mad Scientist? She's really 20,000 years old, is the mother of the Space Pirate, she wants him anyway, and she's  Oh, and Word of God says that the . And then there's the two Galaxy Police Detectives, Ad Nauseam...
 * In Kimagure Orange Road, Madoka Ayukawa could be considered Kyōsuke Kasuga's magical girlfriend, even though Kyōsuke is the one with Psychic Powers and Madoka is a Badass Normal.
 * Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, heavily subverted. Done mostly as a Crosses the Line Twice parody of the genre.
 * Inukami! has Keita and his magical girlfriend, Youko. Keita actively tries to assemble a harem several times throughout the series, but it fails every time. However, the Magnetic Girlfriend effect takes over, and the other Inukami grow to like him by the series' end.
 * Lilim Kiss - succubus
 * Rosario + Vampire. Moka is the First Girl in an Unwanted Harem at a Monster School. However, she's in love with Tsukune since he was the first person she sucked blood from...and continues to do so, much to his chagrin.
 * While it's a totally straight example at first, it shifts away from the norm for this trope about halfway through Part I of the manga, as Tsukune starts his progression from average dork to Bishonen Badass.
 * Feena in Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro na. She's also accompanied by more traditional haremettes like Mia, Natsuki and Mai, but who played the game for them?
 * From a certain point of view, Trickster Mentor Haruko from FLCL. As the series director states in supplemental materials: "People who are bullied don't need to put any effort into being bullied... effortless communication. The maid-boom is like that too, right?... It's a dream for people like me. People who have to put effort into having a conversation with someone."
 * Haruhi Suzumiya is, in effect, a Magical She Is Not My Girlfriend, and a subversion of the whole thing, as she epitomizes exactly what protagonist Kyon claims he doesn't want out of life. It's quite likely he's lying to himself, though.


 * Moonphase is a double subversion of this. Hapless photographer meets cute girl. She tries to kiss him, they bond magically, and then she's pissed that he still has free will, as she was looking for a servant/slave, but a few episodes later it has turned into one of these, admittedly with a very different family dynamic. (Hers keeps trying to kidnap her back or kill her.) She even gets a romantic rival.
 * Happy World is a manga series that uses this trope; the protagonist is the guy who receives all the bad luck in the world, and Heaven sends an Angel to protect this person and whoever he passes on the curse to. The protagonist eventually falls in love with the Angel sent to protect him.
 * The Type Moon universe arguably has some elements of this, though it is famous for more than just that. The main heroine of every story by TypeMoon are one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, being in that particular story ( Arcueid, Saber, Ryougi Shiki, The Angel (Type-Venus). However, the heroes are freaking Badass themselves (even Mikiya, kinda), they just have the limitation of being "a mere human."
 * Lala of To LOVE-Ru fits the criteria perfectly.
 * Himari of Omamori Himari, the cat-girl samurai protector of Yuuto.
 * As mentioned above, gender-flipped in Yuu Watase's Absolute Boyfriend.
 * Played straight and averted in Eureka Seven: Renton's love interest is...a Strange Girl with quite "magical" abilities who doesn't seem to understand common human sense. And has an unusual hair color too. However, while Eureka at first appears to be an angel, he learns rather quickly just how cold and ruthless she can be.
 * My Lovely Ghost Kana. Boy meets a lovely ghost named Kana. Yup.
 * One Girls Love example can be found in the manga, Creo the Crimson Crises. Within the Manga the central pairing is between Suou, who initially starts out as an Ordinary High School Student, and Creo, a Magic Knight demon princess.
 * Seto no Hanayome has normal human Nagasumi who is engaged to Sun, the sweet and beautiful mermaid. Most of the time though, it doesn't take itself seriously.
 * SHUFFLE! has not one, but
 * This Ugly Yet Beautiful World—Both Hikari and Akari epitomize this trope.
 * Arguably the main driving force of Kanokon, asides from the Fan Service and the comedy brought about by Chizuru's extreme sexual lust.
 * Partially subverted because the magical side of Chizuru is rarely brought into play, and she's not perfect. In fact, she downright makes life worse for Kouta, including almost downright raping him just about once an episode.
 * Gender flipped in Fruits Basket, Tohru ends up living with and falling in love with a magical shape-shifting guy.
 * And type flipped: Tohru has the personality of the Magical Girlfriend (albeit including Stepford Smiler tendencies), and the guy is an unlucky loser within the circles of people either of them notice.
 * Mamotte Shugogetten. The main character ends up with two (diametrically opposed) magical girlfriends. One is a Kawaiiko Yamato Nadeshiko who draws magical energy from the moon and summons cutesy sprites. The other is a Tsundere Vamp who draws magical energy from the sun and can bring inanimate objects to life. Hilarity ensues.
 * My Balls—cute demon.
 * Mysterious Girlfriend X—not so much magical as one of the few people aware of the magical power of saliva.
 * Averted in Code Geass, where C.C., an immortal Mysterious Waif becomes entwined in the life of Lelouch, a very popular guy who is quite clear that She Is Not My Girlfriend.
 * Played straight earlier in the chronology, however, when she fulfilled this for the young orphan Mao, but for a lot of dramatic reasons and even a little bit of Squick, it doesn't end well.
 * In Please Teacher, Mizuho technically qualifies as this for the young man Kei, being that she is a Human Alien (well, a Half-Human Hybrid who's half-Human Alien, to be exact). And it doubles as a Teacher-Student Romance complete with heavy, heavy Fan Service.
 * Hyper Doll - alien androids.
 * Parodied mercilessly in Gou Dere Bishoujo Nagihara Sora which is ironic since this trope is played straight in most of Minazuki's other works like Sora no Otoshimono and Watashi no Messiah-sama.
 * Gender-flipped in My Sweet Dragon, where a shy, insecure girl get a gorgeous boyfriend/husband who is a dragon.
 * Ashita Dorobou has an interesting variant of this trope. Might be a Deconstruction of sorts. Straight-laced 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.
 * Gender-flipped in Akuma na Eros, where Miu ends up dating Satan.
 * Arguably, Lette from the Girls Love manga The Mikos Words and The Witches Incantations qualifies. Not only is she a Cute Witch, she makes a deal with the god of Tsumugi's shrine and gains part of her divine essence so Tsumugi can travel with her, effectively becoming a demigod.
 * As for the aforementioned god, she takes on Tsumugi's form and takes over the shrine so the miko can stay with Lette, spending much of her time flirting with Tsumugi's hidden bodyguard Isuzu (who had a thing for Tsumugi and is now the target of the god's affections).
 * Mai from Itsudatte My Santa!. She possess magic powers (although she's an Inept Mage) and falls in love with San when she is sent to cheer him up and improve his luck.
 * DearS - Human Alien.
 * The World of Narue - Half-Human Hybrid (the other half being alien).
 * Rizel, the genetically engineered female lead of Rizelmine. In a twist on the trope, male lead Tomonori isn't happy about this, as he Likes Older Women and is still in love with his teacher, even though she's engaged to be married.
 * Chibi Vampire - Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, with a dash of Our Vampires Are Different.
 * 3x3 Eyes - three-eyed demon.
 * Princess Resurrection - the princess of all monsters.
 * Tenshi ni Narumon - trainee angel.
 * Wirbelwind - dark elf.
 * Sankarea - Starts off as human x human, but quickly changes into human x zombie (not that Chihiro minds).
 * Durarara!! - headless horsewoman.
 * Tasogare Otome x Amnesia - amnesiac ghost.
 * Dance in the Vampire Bund - vampire.
 * Hellsing - Friendly Neighborhood Vampire.
 * Subverted in Kannagi - while Nagi is a centuries old tree goddess, she doesn't appear to be romantically interested in Jin... just yet.
 * Set up, then averted, in My Dear Marie.
 * Reverie "Ren" Metherlence of Elemental Gelade.
 * Phryne of Fractale.
 * Dragonaut: The Resonance - Jin falls in love with Toa, who has the appearance of a girl, but is really a mecha alien space dragon.
 * Parodied in The Secret Devil-chan - the hero summons a succubus to take his virginity, only to discover "she's" a guy...and until the pact is fufilled, he has to live with the demon. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues.
 * Monako Haida, the zombie love interest in Living Dead.
 * Ten De Showaru Cupid (also known as Altogether Wicked Cupid), involves a relationship between a normal, human boy and a beautiful, devil girl. It's by the creator of Yu Yu Hakusho.
 * Maki of My Dearest Devil Princess.
 * Aoi from Ai Yori Aoshi is the metaphorical version; competent rather than magical, she spent her entire life (willingly) training to be Karou's perfect love interest. Her parents' intent to call off the arranged marriage between Aoi and Karou is what kicks off the entire plot.

Comic Books

 * Cruelly subverted in the recent Thor comics with Ice Goddess Kelda and short-order cook Bill. Doctor Doom even taunted the bereft Kelda that she and Bill were never meant to be.
 * Long-running UK comic Whizzer and Chips had a strip named "Bobby's Ghoul", which was about a boy who had a ghost for a girlfriend.
 * Morpheus in The Sandman has had occasional romances with mortals, essentially being a magical boyfriend. Unlike most examples of the trope, the relationships don't end well, which may or may not mean they count as a Deconstruction.
 * In Lucifer, Mazikeen, a lilim (a child of the demon Lilith) is in a relationship with Beatrice, a human woman.
 * My Dead Girlfriend - Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * Madman - reanimated corpse. Also a gender-flipped example.

Films - Live Action

 * Splash, in which an incredibly submissive mermaid is absolutely crazy about Tom Hanks. Her being a mermaid is the least implausible part of this equation.
 * The movie Mannequin plays this straight. It has a beautiful Egyptian princess who wants "more than this" life several thousand years ago. The gods agree and she disappears. We next see her as a mannequin who apparently can only appear and act real for one person --- the protagonist.
 * Subverted in Weird Science (film and series), in which two teenage geeks create their very own Magical Girlfriend, Lisa, a virtual-reality-based supermodel-type who solves all their problems for them, often with unintended results or methods, then helpfully goes away. (Despite their initial intentions for creating her, neither geek seems to have any real romantic relationship with Lisa—beyond the requisite ogling—so her "Girlfriend" status is questionable; they actually treat her more like their Cool Big Sis.)
 * However, in the movie at least, one of the teenagers wakes up wearing Lisa's underwear, so it's strongly implied they've had sex. The Cool Big Sis attitude is there on the whole run of the TV series, though.
 * Giselle, the fairytale princess from Enchanted. Actually ends up breaking up an existing affair in the process, a rare semi-twist. In addition, the breakup and associated hookup happen late because at first Giselle is eternally devoted to someone else, which is another rare semi-twist.
 * Subverted in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
 * Later,.
 * And it's really more Action Girlfriend than Magical Girlfriend anyway.
 * The line between subverted/played straight in The Fifth Element is a little muddy. The female lead is a fairly traditional magical girlfriend, but whether or not Bruce Willis fits the stereotypical loser role is questionable. On one hand, Bruce is as much a hardcore, good-looking action hero as ever. On the other hand, he is a washed up vet with no friends or prospects who loses his job and his apartment within the first quarter of the movie.
 * I Married A Witch - Hot Witch.
 * Bell Book And Candle - Hot Witch (in fact, this movie was inspired by I Married a Witch, and both inspired Bewitched).
 * Date With An Angel: The "loser" is actually about to be married to someone who might be wrong for him. On the night of his bachelor party, an angel kind of crash lands in his pool; they fall for each other when he gives her a place to stay while her broken wing heals.
 * Underworld - vampire.
 * Let the Right One In - vampire.
 * Innocent Blood - vampire.
 * Prom Night III: The Last Kiss - Axe Crazy Cute Ghost Girl.
 * The Lost Boys - Dhampyr.
 * Near Dark - vampire.

Films - Animated

 * Corpse Bride - dead girl.

Literature

 * Willow from Terry Brooks' Landover series is not only protagonist Ben's ideal woman (and a Green-Skinned Forest Babe), she's also essentially destined to "belong" to him. Cue "I'm not worthy" monologues and skeptic waiting for the catch.
 * The catch being that at least for a while.
 * It got much worse than that for poor Benjamin: by the most recent novel, his daughter has grown up to be just like him. Willow is clearly amused by the frustration this causes her husband.
 * In Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Richard, after being dumped by the excessively demanding Rich Bitch Jessica, meets Door, who fits this trope in every way except that they never actually go out, and that she doesn't make him feel like The Load. There is a similar and simultaneous situation between Richard and Action Girl Hunter, who does make him feel like The Load, or at least, demasculinized, but doesn't appear to care. Door and Hunter somehow form a No Hugging, No Kissing, Betty and Veronica situation. It's also hinted that Hunter may be a lesbian, rendering the whole thing moot.
 * Hinted nothing. Hunter explicitly has sex with one of the female denizens of London Below in exchange for shelter and supplies (and pleasure) and reminisces about the time she was offered sex by a Thai girl in return for saving her (or as a reward for great heroics), which she enthusiastically accepted.
 * The male leads in the Twilight series are Magical Boyfriends.
 * The parody Light Novels Haiyore! Nyaruko-san pair ordinary high school boy Mahiro Yasaka with Nyarko, none other than Nyarlathotep. Fortunely, this is parody with Romantic Comedy theme (or "Love(craft) comedy" as it labeled) so he doesn't gone insane.
 * In Aaron Allston's Galatea in 2-D, Roger had painted pictures of his hopeless crush when he was a teenager. When Art Initiates Life, he is horrified to find he has made a woman who is madly in love with him.
 * In Carole Matthew's book It's a Kind of Magic (not to be confused with the song of the same name), a guy is dumped by his girlfriend (justified, because he was an immature Jerkass who was late to her birthday party, showed up drunk and embarrassed her in front of her friends and family) meets a woman whom he saves from suicide, then discovers that she is in fact a fairy from a Magical Land (complete with Magic Wand). He becomes her boyfriend, and slowly changes everything about himself. In the end, after he changes for the better, . May or may not be a Deconstruction of the trope. (Oh, and the story interweaves with the story of his ex-girlfriend being jealous of the new girl, and wondering if her wish was a good thing.
 * In the Discworld series, Susan has a magical boyfriend in the form of the Anthropomorphic Personification of Time (although it may not count since Susan is the granddaughter-by-adoption of Death, himself an Anthropomorphic Personification).
 * In The Redemption of Althalus, Althalus becomes the disciple of Dweia, eventually falling in love with her and having a child with her. Oh, did I mention Dweia just happens to be a goddess?
 * Niall Of The Far Travels has Emalkartha, goddess of the Eleven Hells, as his girlfriend.
 * Bloodsucking Fiends - vampire.
 * The Vampires Beautiful Daughter - Dhampyr.
 * Demon In My View - vampire.
 * The Peony Lantern - ghost.
 * The Gravesavers - ghost.
 * The Alien Series - Human Alien, also gender-flipped.
 * Dance With The Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon - the heroine
 * Dream Chaser - the heroine is.
 * Seize The Night - she is a cursed half-Apollite, he is a Dark Hunter
 * Sins Of The Night - possibly both main characters, as he is a ghost in human form and she
 * Acheron - same as above - he is a god, and she
 * The Dresden Files is all over the place with this one. Harry himself is a magical boyfriend to Susan..
 * Elain would be, but she and Harry were fairly comparable in magical prowess, if in different specializations.
 * to her boyfriend, before she drilled psychic holes in his head. Awkward.
 * . But she never told her husband.
 * Michael Carpenter could count as a magical husband to Charity, but what he does isn't strictly magic.
 * Thomas Raith is this to Justine. House Raith of the White Court could be this more generally, but most don't care about humans in the slightest. Lara Raith is a bit of a deconstruction, since when Harry is asked if they're together and if he's ever been with her, he points out that he's still breath.
 * A lot of the Fey have tried to be this to Harry for various reasons.
 * Wizards in general have these, often of comparable power to them, because apparently it sucks to have a mortal spouse when you're semi-immortal.
 * Eragon of The Inheritence Cycle realizes that he'll need one of these or he'll have to watch her grow old while he stays young. Being magic and as of the second book also, he's not going away or even aging in the foreseeable future.
 * Kahlan is this to Richard in the Sword of Truth, until he discovers that he's inherited more and more varied magical powers than anyone in three thousand years. Nicci tried to be this, on the same token.

Live-Action TV

 * Bewitched, a Trope Codifier along with I Dream of Jeannie.
 * I Dream of Jeannie, although successful astronaut Tony Nelson wasn't exactly an Unlucky Everydude apart from his mistake of repeatedly trying to apply rational thought to Jeannie's inherently magical nature.
 * The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "I Was Made To Love You", has Warren Mears build a robotic "girlfriend" April.
 * Also, in Buffy's fifth season Riley seems to feel this way about Buffy herself. Although he was never really a loser to begin with, he develops a massive inferiority complex in regards to his own usefulness and her feelings towards him. This being a show by Joss Whedon, things don't exactly end happily for this couple.
 * Also, there's Buffy herself and her relationship with the vampire Angel.
 * Interestingly this happens in Sabrina the Teenage Witch too, except that it's Gender Flipped. Sabrina cooks up a temporary date out of man dough to take her to the dance when Harvey goes with Libby. He loves Sabrina, but he also loves everything and everyone. Libby ends up dumping Harvey for him as Harvey won't dance. Interestingly, in this situation the one who isn't the "Magical (Girl/Boy)friend" in this case is the one with the magical powers. The man dough guy qualifies by not being human, and by being totally into Sabrina.
 * Strange Western example: Star Trek: The Next Generation had Picard meet, and have to give up, a woman initially being transported as "cargo" possessed of the power to become anyone's Magical Girlfriend.
 * Also done in Red Dwarf, with a GELF (Genetically Engineered Life Form) that telepathically takes the form of the perfect mate of whoever sees it. Kryten had a female android of an advanced model, Rimmer had a female hologram that was just as nerdy and unsuccessful, Lister had a female scouser who had more in common with his female self than his canon girlfriend, Kochanski and the Cat had... himself. In the end, she reveals herself to be a giant green blob of snot. Kryten takes her out to dinner, dancing and a movie, then loses her to her husband, another green blob of snot. And the whole thing is played as a homage to Casablanca.
 * It's also a parody of the Star Trek: The Original Series pilot episode, "The Man Trap". The antagonist in it similarly uses telepathy to make it appear the perfect mate to anyone who sees it... and then kills them by draining all the salt out of them. It too turns out in the end to be a hideous green monster, albeit a humanoid one.
 * On December 23, 2008, there was a New Year special called Nada Fofa (translation: "Not That Cute") on the Brazilian channel Rede Globo. In that case, it's a Gender Flip and the "girlfriend" is actually a large pink plush chicken which annoys the heck out of the main character.
 * Deconstructed in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, where the inhuman, beautiful girlfriend is also an emotionless and brutally logical machine that not only goes to rather shocking lengths to protect John Connor, but is perfectly willing to use John's reactions and emotions toward her to manipulate him.
 * Depending on your point of view, The Doctor could sometimes count as a gender flipped version, the Eighth and Tenth incarnations being probably the most blatant examples. All the others (apart from the ones that were physically too old to count) were usually a non-romantic variation. The TARDIS also counts as the Doctor's... ah, girlfriend.
 * Moonlight - vampire detective.
 * Vampire Diaries - Gender-flipped example with Stefan, played straight with both Vicki and Anna.
 * Played with in Dead Gorgeous - it's one-sided on the Cute Ghost Girl's part.
 * The Korean Drama My Girlfriend Is a Nine-Tailed Fox - Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Music

 * Alan O'Day's Undercover Angel is a story where he sings about how he was crying in his bed because he didn't have a girlfriend when an amazing woman suddenly appeared. They do all sorts of amazing things together, but she has to leave him. However, if he goes around picking up women, eventually he will see her again in the eyes of one of his future lovers.
 * She's An Angel by They Might Be Giants tells of a girl arriving unexpectedly in the narrator's life ("I met someone at the dog show / She was holding my left arm"), the pair of them having adventures together, and the narrator believing that she is literally an angel, and not meant to be together with him as he's a mere mortal ("These things happen to other people / They don't happen at all, in fact").

Newspaper Comics

 * Way, way back in the 1960s, Dick Tracy went through an extended phase known as the Moon Period, where the strip focused more on sci-fi elements than crime. During this time, Junior Tracy (Dick's adopted son) met and fell in love with the alien woman Moon Maid, who resembled a Caucasian female apart from her large eyes and giraffe-like horns, and possessed the ability to change her body temperature from 18 degrees above zero to 200 degrees (affecting whatever she touched)and shoot destructive energy from her hands, causing things to blow up. He eventually married her, and they had a daughter, Honey Moon, who possessed a magnetic ability to attract small metal objects to her hands. Sadly, Moon Maid died via a car bomb meant for Dick.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

 * There is a popular Korean tale about a man who finds a Fairy. He accidentally rips one of her fairy garments, making it impossible for her to go back home. She lives with him, and they marry, though things don't end well. This has become a subject for a couple of Korean comics, the Manhwa Faeries Landing being one of them.
 * There is a similar Irish tale about a man who married a mermaid. He stole the red cap she needed to swim back home. After having many children with him, she.
 * Another version has the girl being a selkie, and the man who finds her steals her seal skin when she takes it off.
 * There are many similar Shapeshifting Lover tales from all around the world.
 * Pygmalion fell madly in love with his own sculpture of a woman. With the blessing of the goddess Aphrodite, live was given to the statue, who married Pygmalion and had a son together (or daughter depending on the version). Needless to say, he lived the rest of his life in celestial bliss.
 * Other versions say that when the statue was given life it abandoned Pygmalion and sought out men more handsome and socially adept than its bitter, anti-social creator.
 * The witch Medea from Classical Mythology, who betrayed her kingdom and killed her brother out of devotion to Jason and then became his bodyguard and hitman. After hooking up with her, Jason apparently stood back and let her handle all the monsters, giant living statues, and enemy kings with her magic. And then he dumped her for a normal, beautiful princess and was surprised when she wouldn't stand for that... What an Idiot!!

Tabletop Games

 * After being revised to revel in its anime roots, Teenagers From Outer Space added Magical Girlfriend as a special power available to characters. The game designers also pointed out the genre was probably inspired by I Dream of Jeannie.

Theater

 * The Rodgers and Hart musical I Married an Angel. The title is meant literally.
 * One Touch of Venus has some minor variations: the protagonist has been engaged for years to a Disposable Fiancée when he meets a statue of a goddess in the flesh, and she's not the domestic type he thinks she is, so they don't end up together (or do they?).

Video Games

 * Anera, an Aasimar cleric in the Neverwinter Nights community-created Shadowlords/Dreamcatcher/Demon module arc, might qualify. She takes a bit more effort than most Magical Girlfriends, but she is supernatural and will only hook up with a good-hearted character, and her half-celestial cousin pops up to kill her and you for disturbing the balance of the universe in the last Shadowlords module (giving you the opportunity to complete Anera's romance sidequest by taking a death effect for her, though the Power of Love keeps you alive at 1 hp).
 * Joclyn in the Dastard's Morrow module might count.
 * This is such a common trope in Visual Novels that it would exhaust the resources of this wiki to list them all. Notable examples include SHUFFLE!, Da Capo, and Tayutama all which have anime adaptations.
 * Saya no Uta is a horrible variation of this trope, as the girl you think she is is not really a human girl - she is an Eldritch Abomination trying to destroy the Earth!! That being said, the "girlfriend" part play straight as her love to main character seem to be genuine.
 * Also varied in Yume Miru Kusuri, with Cat Sidhe Nekoko, a depowered fairy who needs Kouhei's help to get back where she's supposed to be.
 * In Harvest Moon DS, you have a chance to marry Leia the mermaid, the Witch Princess, or the Harvest Goddess.
 * Elven healer Asilana of Elven Relations.

Web Comics

 * Done straight in El Goonish Shive, where the human-alien-squirrel hybrid Grace is the devoted lover of the classic geek Tedd, who is also very much into shapeshifting of all kinds. Grace is also The Woobie.
 * A similar (both are written by Shapeshifter/Gender Bender fans and have a lot of thematic crossover) comic The Wotch stars (generally) demure witch Anne whose close male friend Robin gets the camera for most storylines. Another friend would be involved with a genie, if he could.
 * Haruna Kurahashi from Experimental Comic Kotone.
 * Lampshaded in Not Quite Daily Comic here.
 * Subverted and Deconstructed in Sluggy Freelance, in which Oasis (an ultracompetent gymnastic killer who is variously suspected of being an android or some other non-human entity) is the very much unwanted Magical Girlfriend of Torg, who is pretty much a loser in most respects but does have a real (and reciprocated) love interest. This is made more interesting because Oasis has certain aspects of The Woobie as well.
 * Housepets: Shortly after Peanut's False Start, Grape comes home from her date with Max to find Peanut watching a movie with another dog, Tarot. This was first time she had appeared in the comic and had apparently "foreseen Peanut in his hour of need." At first, it seemed her magic-ness was just a throw-away gag, but she has since been shown capable of Telepathy and mental illusion, among other things.
 * And the source of her magic-ness is shown to be.
 * A proclaimed objective of Ow, My Sanity is "stabbing the magical girlfriend genre with a rusty chainsaw". All the potential girlfriends in the Unwanted Harem (and other new interesting acquaintances) are straight from H.P. Lovecraft.
 * Sinfest: Heavily deconstructed with Fuscia and Criminy. Crim's a Chaste Hero taken Up to Eleven while Fuscia is a succubus. Who works for Satan. Who will likely kill her if he ever finds out. The reason she's so into him? Because he's the only person who didn't treat her like a monster or a sex object. ...wow.
 * Andy of Casey and Andy starts dating Satan (who's a very sexy lady in the comic's universe) from around strip 50, and the relationship continues up until the final strip.
 * Ghost Friend.
 * In The Order of the Stick, Roy, a human warrior, is dating Celia, an air elemental sylph. Also, Nale (Elan's Evil Twin) is dating Sabine, a succubus, but considering he's a powerful enchanter in his own right, it may not count.
 * Anime Arcadia.
 * Dangerously Chloe, a spinoff of Eerie Cuties, is a dark-ish comedy twist of this. Fans noted its "Ah! My Demoness" roots right away, but there are... differences. Teddy accidentally got a demonic contract. On a "girlfriend". Which is when the familiar winged, horned, large-chested silhouette appears out of thin air. The main problem with this situation is that while Chloe after seeing that he's actually a very decent chap won't mind make it real, ... And while these contracts have loopholes, it's never easy. Then another succubus pops up. Then angels take keen and less than friendly interest... and so on.
 * My Succubus Girlfriend is all about this; the eponymous succubus is something of a novice, botching her attempt to seduce a young man to claim his soul, later resulting in falling in love with him.

Web Original

 * In Kumiko the Demon Girl, Ken, perpetually luckless with women, gets Kumiko, a somewhat naive and overly chipper demon, as his girlfriend. On the plus side, the sex is great and he's protected against various mystical threats around him. On the minus side, she's consuming a bit more of his soul every time they have sex and the mystical threats largely exist due to Kumiko existing. Oh, and the mystical chain connecting them prevents him from getting too far away from her, and he bears a brand on his neck of a cartoonish copy of her flashing a Victory Sign, and her naïveté constantly gets him hurt, and when his luck does change, she drives the other girls away... but then again, the sex is really, really good.
 * Sort of sadly subverted in Tales of MU with the bonus story "A Boy's Prayer": the story implies that Amaranth the cereal nymph manifested the way she is as (a buxom, nerdy, glasses-wearing Love Freak) because one lonely, geeky twelve-year-old boy, uh, fertilized her field with fantasies and desires of such a woman. The subversion (and sadness) is that after she manifested exactly according to his desires, he never even got to meet her.

Western Animation

 * Kim Possible approaches conspicuously close to this trope in Season 4, especially in Ron's mind, judging by the season premiere. Luckily Kim's personality is so far out of the norm for this role fans don't worry too much.
 * Judging by the series finale, Shego might be a Tsundere example toward Dr. Drakken.
 * The aptly named Batman Beyond episode "Terry's Friend Dates a Robot" plays with this idea. Terry's geeky friend Howard purchases an (illegal) human-like synthoid robot which looks like a beautiful woman, whom he names Synthia and has programmed to be "totally into me". Problem is, she is scarily possessive and has superhuman strength. She nearly kills a couple of people who bully Howard and Batman has to step in. When Howard decides they should see other people, she literally explodes.
 * Code Lyoko: As far as The Smart Guy Jérémie is concerned, Aelita definitely fits this trope; it was obvious to his friends that he was in love with her even though he knew her only as a cheerfully innocent, pixie-like artificial intelligence living in a computer. She's gradually revealed to be an amnesiac human girl who was trapped in Cyberspace, and their relationship continues once she's rescued (though it also gets more complicated, as Jérémie predicted would happen if she started living on Earth).
 * Parodied in Futurama, when Fry buys pirated Lucy Liu downloaded from the Internet and put on a blank robot to date, and his friends try to stop him with a film showing how without the struggle to impress the opposite or same sex, society would collapse.
 * Jenny shows up to rescue Sheldon from bullies in My Life as a Teenage Robot. She has most of the traits; to the point where, when Jenny is tired of dating egotistical boys, and complains she needs someone sweet, Sheldon walks past and she barely notices him beyond a perfunctory hello.
 * Word of God says that if the show had continued, Jenny would have indeed become Sheldon's girlfriend.
 * Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders. The normally carefree Shaggy and Scooby fall for a hippie nature photographer named Crystal and her Golden Retriever Amber.. Even a whole music video in the movie is Shaggy fantasizing about their future relationship. As it turns out,
 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka's first girlfriend Yue is an inversion... when she becomes magical (by transforming into the new Moon spirit), she has to stop being his girlfriend.
 * Aang himself is a Magical Boyfriend - he's an energetic, kind, generous messiah-figure that helps Katara achieve everything she ever wanted to. Everything. Getting her Waterbending training, check. Reuniting her with her father, check. Finding closure with her mother's death, check. Saving the world, check.
 * Disney's animated Hercules series had an example based incredibly loosely on the legend of Galatea (in which a sculptor fell in love with his statue and had Aphrodite bring it to life and they lived happily ever after.) Hercules can't get a date for the prom or something, and since the original Galatea sculptor is his art teacher and has a sexy wife that used to be a statue, Hercules sculpts his own and has Aphrodite bring it to life (she mentions that she's really sick of bringing statues to life because people can't get dates.) The statue-girl (named Galatea, for some reason) is crazy about him in a crazy way, and while she doesn't have standard magical powers, she instead is made of living cement and keeps growing tentacles to capture Hercules and hug him.