History Main / MaskOfSanity

* The villain [[Characters/MyHeroAcademiaDabi Dabi]] from ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' establishes himself as a stoic individual. [[spoiler: During the Paranormal Liberation War, he reveals himself as the thought to be deceased son of Endeavor where he gloats to his shellshocked father that he killed innocent people all in the name of tarnishing his name as the Number One. The once quiet and reserved Dabi reveals himself as a laughing mad, sociapathic mass murderer.]]

* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'': While it's no surprise that all of the phantoms are insane, special props goes to [[spoiler:Sora/Gremlin. Before TheReveal, we see that he is a giggling little {{troll}}. He's obviously dangerous and even manhandles Wizard and Beast a couple times, but that's barely the surface. He then reveals that he is the only phantom to retain his human persona, that's when the real reveal begins. The people who knew him before the Sabbath say he was a nice, if eccentric, guy. It turns out that he's a SerialKiller who continues this as a hobby]].

* [[Characters/NeonGenesisEvangelionGendoIkari Gendō Ikari]] from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is ostensibly the leader of the heroic organization fighting to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. [[spoiler:The truth of the matter is far more complicated, as he's plotting to cause it instead in a mad quest to be [[{{Necromantic}} reunited with his long-dead wife]].]]

** [[KnightTemplar Light]] [[FauxAffablyEvil Yagami]] goes insane by the second episode yet still manages to blend in with society. [[spoiler:By the end of the series, he's defeated, and everyone figures out just how crazy he was.]]

** While he's able to hide beneath a [[FauxAffablyEvil polite and suave act]] and function well enough to run a business, beneath it all, Freeza is a brutally {{sadist}}ic, AxCrazy psychopath who will kill ''anyone'', even his own minions, ForTheEvulz, and the mask falls off completely when Goku defeats him. In ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' and ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', he suffers from SanitySlippage from his time in Hell, and his humiliating defeat to Goku and his death at the hands of Future Trunks, and while he tries to hide it under his usual polite façade, the mask is considerably more transparent.
** When Goku Black first appears in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', [[NoNonsenseNemesis he doesn't talk and just kills everything in sight]]. When we finally see his form, he grins and tells Future Trunks how he was finally going to kill him, while still remaining [[FauxAffablyEvil calm and polite]]. It's in the second episode that we get hints that Black may not be completely sane, given how he laughs when Trunks punches him in the stomach. In episode 51, when Black tells Trunks why he's killing humans, it's confirmed that he isn't [[AxCrazy really sane]], especially with all his [[MoodSwinger mood swings]].
** [[spoiler:While Future Zamasu mostly acts calm and [[SmugSuper confident]], it's obvious by his {{Slasher Smile}}s and {{Motive Rant}}s that he [[SanitySlippage fell off the deep end a long time ago]].]]

* The villain Dabi from ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' establishes himself as a stoic individual. [[spoiler: During the Paranormal Liberation War, he reveals himself as the thought to be deceased son of Endeavor where he gloats to his shellshocked father that he killed innocent people all in the name of tarnishing his name as the Number One. The once quiet and reserved Dabi reveals himself as a laughing mad, sociapathic mass murderer.]]

* Gendo Ikari from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is ostensibly the leader of the heroic organization fighting to prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. [[spoiler:The truth of the matter is far more complicated, as he's plotting to cause it instead in a mad quest to be [[{{Necromantic}} reunited with his long-dead wife]].]]

* [[BigBad Millions Knives]] from ''Anime/TrigunStampede''. As the series progresses, it's clear that Knives's cold, rational stoicism is a façade covering homicidal paranoia, extreme fear, and single-minded obsession with his delusion of an ideal brother. The mask falls in episode twelve, and [[spoiler: he spends the remainder of his screentime in a truly spectacular VillainousBreakdown]].

* Legion from the ''Series/RedDwarf'' [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVILegion episode of the same name]] is initially [[CreepyMonotone calm]] and [[AffablyEvil pleasant]]. After the truth comes out, he also admits that he's a gestalt entity made from whoever is on the station at the time, and while he's got the gang's good qualities, he's also got their malice and neuroses, "magnified many times". Fittingly, this reveal comes after his literal mask is knocked off, revealing his NightmareFace.

[[/folder]]