Miko/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: In traditional sense, a girl who tends a (Shinto) shrine and appeases the deities it houses.

  • Straight: Himiko, the girl who tends Asamiya, the local Shinto shrine in the neighborhood.
  • Exaggerated: Asamiya is as huge as Borobudur the Angkor Wat, it has thousands of believers, and Himiko is regarded as a living goddess.
  • Justified: Himiko's family has been tending the Asamiya since the antiquity.
  • Inverted: Himiko's big brother Masahiko, the kannushi (male Shinto priest) who tends Asamiya.
    • Himiko is an oni that destroys shrines on regular basis.
    • Patriarchs of Abrahamic religions (i.e. the Pope or the Ayatollah).
  • Subverted: Himiko isn't really a Miko, she's just a Cosplay Otaku Girl.
  • Double Subverted: But when she's at home, she's actually a Miko.
  • Parodied: "Magical Shrine Maiden Himiko! With the power of the gods, I shall cleanse thy impurities!"
  • Deconstructed: Himiko doesn't like being a Shrine Maiden. It's outdated, and most people see her as a weird oracle of some sort.
  • Reconstructed: The gods are highly responsive to prayers, so Himiko keeps the job.
  • Zig Zagged: Himiko isn't really a Miko, she's just a Cosplay Otaku Girl. But when she's at home, she's actually a Miko. Except that the "shrine" is a tourist attraction. But then, she is often Not Herself...
  • Averted: Despite having Shrines and Temples, not a single Miko is in sight. *sigh*
  • Enforced: The work panders to Otaku who has Miko fetish.
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: Bob, visiting a Shinto shrine to find authentic Shrine Maiden "like in those Moe Moe animes".
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: The chief priest of Asamiya forbids women from tending the shrine.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Unintentional Troping: The clash between the old and the new is depicted when Himiko walk the streets of Tokyo in Miko attire.
  • Played For Laugh: Kathy, a Cosplay Otaku Girl from the USA, try being a Miko for a week.

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