Man Behind The Man / Anime & Manga

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• Attack on Titan features this trope in several different ways.
  • The Reiss family are the true rulers of mankind within the walls, with the supposed King really being a puppet stand-in employed by them.
  • The various Titan Shifters are all part of a single unit led by Zeke Yeager aka the Beast Titan. They were sent by the Kingdom of Marley, along with the other mindless, man-eating Titans, to exterminate the population of Paradis so Marley could seize the rich fossil fuel deposits of the island.
  • Within Marley, the Tybur family, a noble Eldian family who rebelled against King Fritz and sided with the Marleyans 100 years ago, are the secret rulers of the Marleyan government and the ones responsible for concocting much of the fake history about the origins of the Titans and the Great Titan War.
  • The biggest one though is Eren Yeager himself, who used the Mental Time Travel abilities of the Attack Titan to influence events all throughout the series in order to set himself up to acquire the power of the Founding Titan so he could use it to exterminate all life outside Paradis.
• Lucius Zogratis, the true identity of Wizard King Julius Novachrono, from Black Clover is the true mastermind behind the Dark Triad, being the one who introduced his siblings to devil possession and had been secretly manipulating the events that lead to the Spade Kingdom War, Lucifero's ascension and defeat, all for his agenda to remake humanity by temporarily destroying and then regenerating them into undying bodies.
• Bleach:
  • All hints pointed to Gin being the Big Bad, but after Aizen is revealed to be alive, he impales his loving vice captain and walks away with Gin following him obediently. It's made even more shocking by the prior implication that they were enemies, and that the former had killed the latter. It gets even deeper than that. Aizen claims he's basically the man behind the entire series. Ichigo (and Uryu, for that matter), wouldn't have been conceived if not for Aizen, because he's the reason why Isshin and Masaki even met in the first place.
  • In the New Captain Shusuke Amagai arc, it's presumed that Kumoi wants to kill Rurichiyo and control the Kasumioji clan, but then when the confrontation comes, Kymoi, Amagai appears out of nowhere, kills him, kidnaps Rurichiyo, and then proceeds to let everyone know his plans to kill Yamamoto, and he used Kumoi and the entire Kasumioji clan to get his hands on a weapon that somehow disables all but his Zanpakutou so he could kill Yamamoto with it.
• Blood+ does this fairly often. In early episodes, Van Argeno is set up as the Big Bad; however, after about ten episodes, he's revealed to be working to Solomon. Later, Solomon is shown to actually be the lowest-ranking of five Chevaliers. Then, for a time, their progenitor Diva is expected to be the mastermind, but she turns out to be too childish to be a proper leader. By the end, it's become apparent that Amshel is calling the shots because he engineered the events that allowed Diva to become the threat she is, whereas Argeno is reduced to cowering in fear and begging for his life. The final episode also implies that Nathan had been pulling the strings all along.
• The Brave Express Might Gaine: The series setups up Exeve as the Big Bad, being the catalyst of the events to start the brave express but it's eventually revealed he was just a puppet used by Black Noir. It's even implied that there was a higher power behind Black Noir's actions.
• Cyborg 009: At the end of the "Underground Empire of Yomi" arc, Skull is revealed to be reporting to three brains residing inside of the Demon Statue.
• In Darker than Black, it looks like it's such a Mêlée à Trois that there can't possibly be a Big Bad. However, it turns out that The Syndicate, the dueling intelligence agencies, the Japanese police force, and PANDORA were all controlled by the same people. Evening Primrose was actually La Résistance, and other than their influence, all the conflict in the series had been due to the higher-ups pitting the Contractors against each other to keep them from finding out their genocidal plans.
• Death Note: In manipulating both Misa and Higuchi; Mikami and Takada both count, too. Light Yagami is the original Kira, functioning through a series of proxies and decoys throughout the series.
• Digimon:
  • In Digimon Adventure 02, we started off with the Digimon Emperor, who later did a Heel–Face Turn and who it was revealed was the pawn of two other villains. They in turn were working for another, who was actually possessed by still another. It gets even weirder when you realize that some of the Fake Bosses' plans didn't jive well with those of the big man (MaloMyotismon). So, either Malo had one extremely bizarre Gambit Roulette going that he never bothered to explain, or the writers simply decided to fall back on Hijacked by Ganon.
  • Digimon Frontier had Cherubimon who went corrupt, but it turned out that Lucemon corrupted him and two other Digimon called the Royal Knights into collecting data so he could return.
• Dragon Ball Z does this several times in a row in the manga and the anime. After Raditz is defeated, Nappa and Vegeta are revealed to be the Saiyans behind the Saiyan. After they are defeated, King Kai mentions the "root" of the problem, which is shortly afterwards introduced as the Saiyans' (ex-)boss, Frieza. Even later in the series, Frieza's father, King Cold, is introduced and revealed as the secret leader of the Planet Trade Organization, which Frieza supposedly ruled.
  • Dragon Ball GT, the anime-only continuation, has a confusing chain of this. The Para-Para Brothers work for Cardinal Muchy Muchy, whose superior is revealed to be Muchy, who in turn is under the command of Dolltaki. Dolltaki is the leader of the worshipping Cult of Luud, and Luud turns out to be a robotic sham creation of Dr. Myuu. Dr. Myuu created Baby, the eventual Big Bad of the arc, and it's eventually revealed that Baby created him, not the other way around.
• Near the end of Excel♡Saga, the head of ACROSS — the organization Il Palazzo serves — is revealed to be a previously-established character known only as "That Man". He makes reference to being one of the "ACROSS Six," the other five of whom are revealed in the unaired final episode to be "This Man, That Man There, That Man Over Here, This Man Over There, and This Man Over Here."
• In Fairy Tail, Zeref is doing the manipulating to bring himself back to life (although he seems to not technically be dead). Ultear also plays this role both for Lyon and Jellal. Although, in reality that was Ultear pretending to be Zeref. Zeref himself doesn't seem to be aware of any of this stuff happening. Also, her actions are actually done on Hades' commands.
• This is implied near the end of Fruits Basket, after Akito's Heel–Face Turn, the 'man' in question being the Sohma family elders, who criticize Akito for not emotionally destroying the members of the Zodiac.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, at first it seems like the homunculi are simply manipulating the country of Amestris because the Fuhrer, King Bradley, is the homunculus Wrath. Then we find out that Bradley himself is simply the result of an experiment by Father, and that Father has been controlling the entire country behind the scenes since the very day it was established 400 years prior. Most of the military's upper command is fully aware of this fact.
  • The first anime has a similar scenario, although it differs in key areas. Dante is the mastermind of this conspiracy and controls the government through Bradley, her ultimate creation. Once the Philosopher Stone that Hohenheim left her began to diminish, she infiltrated the government in order to facilitate the creation of a new one. Unlike in the manga, only Bradley and Tucker seem to be aware of her existence.
• In GaoGaiGar, the Season 1 Big Bad Pasdar turns out to be a subordinate of one of the 31 Primevals, which are themselves fragments of the much more fearsome Z Master.
• GR: Giant Robo has Johnny Soccor, the producer of the BF tv network manipulated both GRO and UNISOM into fighting the GR units to sow fear and panic among the people to boost ratings.
• While not actually villainous, it's pretty obvious that Austria's the true power behind the Holy Roman Empire in Hetalia: Axis Powers. Which is what happened in Real Life, via the Habsburgs.
• Hoshin Engi: Late in the manga, it's revealed that Dakki is working for Joka, one of the First People who was sealed away for wanting to wipe out everything on Earth and make it into their old homeworld. Dakki agreed to help her in exchange for great power but planned to take over Joka's body and use its power to merge with the Earth like the other First People did. Also in turn, Joka's brother Fukki, along with Genshi Tenson, conspired to prepare the Hoshin Project in order to defeat Joka once and for all and free the world from History's Signal. Fukki was controlling both sides of the conflict by splicing his soul to create Taikobo and Otenkun.
• Inuyasha has Naraku, the puppeteer behind just about every conflict in the show, past and present, having manipulated Inu Yasha and Kikyou into fighting each other in order to taint the Shikon no Tama further, who only surfaced after a while in the manga. At the end of the series, Naraku proves to have a man behind him as well — the Jewel of Four Souls itself, which actually has a will on his own.
• Kinnikuman:
  • Big the Budo, who for the past two rounds had been working as Neptuneman's lackey, is revealed not only to be Neptune King, the one in charge, but the one who turned Kenkaman INTO Neptuneman, making him the true villain of the Choujin Tag Arc.
  • Similarly, Mr Barracuda, Warsman's trainer unmasks himself as Robin Mask, who says that he trained Warsman specifically to kill Kinnikuman, making him the true villain of the 21st Choujin Olympics.
  • In the 2012 series, who sent the Perfect Large Numbers to attack Kinnikuman and why are the Devil Chojin involved in this especially Goldman/Akuma Shogun? The person is not other than Chojin Enma.
• Knight Hunters: In Season 1, Reiji Takatori is the man behind criminal organizations like the Creeper gang and the Liott prostitution ring, and Essett is behind Takatori. In Season 2, Mayumi Tsujii is behind Todou and S Class, and Epitaph (and by extension Essett again) is behind Tsujii. Rampant Chronic Backstabbing Disorder — particularly on the parts of Schwarz, who start out as one of the groups that Reijia Takatori is behind and end up backstabbing their way right out of Essett altogether — muddies the exact order in both cases.
• Kyō Kara Ore Wa!!: Fujieda, was officially leader of the delinquents of Nan High original, but he took orders from Shiratori behind the scenes.
• The Mazinger trilogy played much with this trope:
  • Mazinger Z: In the original manga, Baron Ashura shows up before Dr. Hell, leading several Mechanical Beasts and the Iron Masks troops and calling it "Ashura's army". In that chapter he seemed like the Big Bad, but one chapter after Dr. Hell is introduced and we learnt Hell was behind the whole operation and he is the real Big Bad.
  • In the anime, Archduke Gorgon was apparently a Dr. Hell's ally. In the last chapters we learnt he was a Dragon with an Agenda was working for Great General of Darkness/Ankoku Daishogun. Likewise...
  • Great Mazinger: In the Mazinger-Z versus Great General of Darkness movie it is said the legions of Mykene Warrior Monsters are commanded by Great General of Darkness. He seems to be the supreme leader of the Mykene Empire. In first episode of Great Mazinger we learnt he is the supreme commander of the Mykene army, and he is under the orders of the Emperor of Darkness (also known like Hades).
  • UFO Robo Grendizer: In the original manga, Blackie is the first Vegan commander in showing up, and he seems being behind the invasion. However, in the next chapter Big Bad King Vega and Dragon-in-Chief Gandal (commander of the armies tasked with the invasion) are introduced.
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch did this every season. In fact, in both seasons, we had a Double Subversion of this trope. Season 1 had Gaito (Gakuto and Gackto in the manga), who was working for Sara, who did a Heel–Face Turn, leaving Gaito as a worse Big Bad than Sara was. Season 2 had Michel's sidekick Fuku appear to be above him but below "That Man", but in the end, That Man was also manipulated by Fuku.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Rau Le Creuset is eventually revealed to be The Man Behind The Man to archenemies Muruta Azrael and Patrick Zala, pretending to be The Mole for the former and The Dragon for the latter. It's all part of his plan to move both sides in the war to such extremes that human extinction will be guaranteed.
• My Hero Academia: All For One is revealed to be the real leader of League of Villain, with Tomura Shigaraki as the figurehead and AFO’s Dragon.
• Naruto exaggerates this trope to absurd extremes. It's first revealed that Akatsuki is lead by a mysterious figure known as Pain. Some chapters and an important character death later, we find out that "Pain" is actually a collection of dead bodies controlled by a man named Nagato, who once studied under the same sensei as Naruto. Then Nagato is actually being manipulated by a masked man known by the alias "Tobi" who claims to actually be the legendary shinobi known as Madara Uchiha. Later on, Tobi isn't the real Madara Uchiha, but is actually a former leaf shinobi named Obito Uchiha who used to be a student of Naruto's father and later turned evil. Then, it turns out Obito's "Moon's Eye Plan" was actually the real Madara's plan, and Obito was also supposed to bring Madara back to life to he become the jinchuuriki of the Ten-Tails. But later we learn that Obito never had any intention of reviving Madara and was using him in order to become the jinchuuriki of the Ten-Tails. But then, Black Zetsu, a mysterious member of Akatsuki and a being that Madara thought he himself had created to carry out his will, is actually carrying out the will of Princess Kaguya, an ancient Physical Goddess whom the current shinobi clans are descended from and who created Black Zetsu centuries ago right before she was sealed away to ensure that she would be revived. And then The Movies happened...
  • It goes even further than that. Orochimaru was originally set up as the Big Bad, but Itachi seemed to be the Greater-Scope Villain. Then it seemed that Danzo was one to Itachi, but then it was revealed that he was being manipulated by Tobi and so on and so forth.
• One Piece:
  • Big Mom is one of the four strongest pirates in One Piece, a tyrant in the New World who, along with her children and other allies, can eliminate the armies of entire countries and get them to submit to her. She was not always like this though — she was always incredibly strong, but she was once kind-hearted. Who made her that way? It's Streusen, a no-name cook who decided he would use her raw strength to achieve his own goals of being in control of people. He met Big Mom when she was still a child and has since effortlessly manipulated her actions so that she would become the conqueror she is at the present while he stays free of suspicion as her head chef.
  • A brief chain of these can be found with the World Government. Behind the mighty Admirals and the Fleet Admiral, who command the actual fleets in the field and do their own fighting when there's big hitters involved, are the Gorosei, or Five Elders: Five old men at the head of the Entire World Government, taking decisions even the Admirals find distasteful. And behind these five, standing against the most important principle under which the World Government was founded — that there wouldn't be a single king to rule over all — is the enigmatic figure known as Imu, who calls the biggest shots such as what bits of history need to be completely erased.
• Overlord (2012): An unintentional example: Demiurge is the guy who comes up with plans-within-plans, but he thinks his lord and master Ainz already knows of them and in fact already came up with a far better one (because of various coincidences and Ainz doing the wrong thing at the right time, Demiurge is always shocked and amazed to learn that his plans unfolded ahead of schedule, and takes it as Ainz showing Demiurge how it's done). Meanwhile, Ainz is completely at sea about what Demiurge is doing (it took him two seasons to cotton on that Demiurge took his "take over the world" joke at face value) and has to resort to increasingly obvious As You Know instances to get Demiurge to explain the plan to everyone so he can have some idea of what's going on.
• In Pretty Cure All Stars DX 3, similar to the Sailor Moon example above it's revealed that the creature known as Black Hole was the source of all evil the girls face. It's kind of hard to figure out, though, if he meant the villains from the TV series itself (which wouldn't make sense as Suite Pretty Cure ♪ was going on at the time, and it was hinted he wasn’t the source for that season's villain) or the villains from the various movies up to that point (whom he resurrected for this).
• Shishio is set up as the Big Bad of Rurouni Kenshin, but behind him is Enishi, the final villain of the series. Shishio has at his disposal an ultra-modern (for the setting) gunship, which he got through Enishi, who owns a fleet of them, and Enishi's Dragon / Evil Genius hides among Shishio's group, pretending to be Dumb Muscle.
• In Sailor Moon, every story arc has this type of villain behind that storyline's recurring villains. Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom has Queen Metallia, Prince Demande of the Black Moon Clan has Wiseman/Death Phantom (and even earlier, Prince Demande is behind Rubeus and the Ayakashi Sisters), Mistress 9 and Professor Tomoe of the Death Busters have Master Pharaoh 90, Zirconia of the Dead Moon Circus has Queen Nehellenia, and Sailor Galaxia of Shadow Galactica has Chaos. The only time this doesn't happen is during the Makaiju Filler Arc in the anime, where the aliens and the Makaiju are working entirely alone.
  • The manga practically makes a matroshka doll of villainy as not only does each story arc feature the same series of villains behind villains as the anime does, but the final story arc one-ups them all as in the manga, the final villain is still Chaos, but in this storyline, Chaos itself has been repeatedly incarnated into all of the previous Big Bad villains as well and Sailor Moon was merely fighting the same villain for a fifth time in a new form.
  • In the musical adaptation of the series, Chaos is downgraded to Galaxia's subordinate/jester, and not even a true dragon. But he still turns out to be The Man in Front of the Man.
• Samurai Deeper Kyo starts with Genma, leader of the Three-Color Gang, mention a "certain person" who ordered him to find and kill Kyo, and later the mysterious Twelve Heavenly Generals, who appears to work for the same person and with the same objective. Said lord is later revealed to be a revived Oda Nobunaga, who was killed by Kyo in the past and know wants revenge. Later on, it's revealed that Nobunaga and the Twelve Generals were actually supplied and supported from the shadows by the Mibu clan, a legendary clan of divine-like figures who have secretly controlled Japan from the shadows since ancient times. The Mibu proves to be the origins of the troubles for pretty much every single character: Sasuke (an Artificial Human made by them), Yuya (her missing dead brother was a Mibu Shaman who figured out their secret), Benitora (The Mibu want to eradicate the Tokugawa for usurping Nobunaga's place as the Shogun), Kyoshiro (former Mibu higher up) and Kyo himself, who's actually a true-blooded Mibu.
• In Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Berg Katse is presented as the face and leader of Galactor. The viewer finds out long before the characters that Sosai X is the true power.
• Stellvia of the Universe does this with non-sentient antagonists. The supernova, the antagonist for the first half of the series, was caused by the crack in space, which is the antagonist for the second half.
• The Anti-Spiral is effectively this to Lordgenome in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as they are the ones who caused him to drive the humans underground.
• Toriko: The main forces on the field seem to be the I.G.O. and the Gourmet Corps led by the villainous Midora. However, the Cooking Festival arc finally introduces a third party, NEO, which masterminded the conflict and is shown to have manipulated both parties in the conflict in order to get their hands on the ultimate food GOD, and whose leader is Dark Chef Joie. Later on, during the final arc, Acacia, the supposed Big Good and Gourmet God, is revealed to be behind NEO and Joie along with the Gourmet Nobles, though the very end reveals that Acacia was Good All Along and teamed up with PAIR to concoct an extremely long-timed plan to free his apocalyptic Appetite Devil Neo and release all the food it ate, which would release countless ingredients and revive the Blue Nitro.
• While he was a more traditional Big Bad in the manga, in the Trigun anime Knives Millions instead occupies this role, with his Dragon Legato doing most of the work until the very end.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • The villain of the third season, Professor Cobra, is revealed to be working for a Duel Monster spirit named Yubel. Later in Season 4, initial villain "Trueman" is revealed to be working for Yusuke Fujiwara... only for Yusuke to be revealed as a host for Darkness, the true villain.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has a series of these. The first true villains are the Dark Signers lead by Rudger. The second season reveals that Rudger was manipulated by Yliaster and the Three Emperors, who in turn work for Z-one. Furthermore, it is revealed Z-one was the commanding force for Paradox in the 10th anniversary movie.
• The YuYu Hakusho manga reveals at the end that every villain Yusuke faces throughout the series is acting with the approval and, in some cases, the aid of King Enma, who wants to make himself look better by having major threats repeatedly stopped by Yusuke and allies (who work for him). The anime opted instead to end with another Tournament Arc, which was glossed over in the manga.

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