Basic Trope: A nice person with a dangerously unstable side.
- Straight: Masako is a genuinely upbeat and kind-hearted girl... She also loves beating up the bullies that constantly harass her. And she does with a smile on her face. She also loves to make terrifying threats to Kenji.
- Exaggerated:
- Most of time Masako acts like she was purity incarnated... But whenever she flips, she is so insane, that no one would even dare to go near her, not even the most detached Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
- Cute Is Evil
- Downplayed: Type B Tsundere, with her violent side exaggerated.
- Justified:
- Masako comes from a messed-up family with a Dark and Troubled Past.
- Masako has a severe case of Bipolar Disorder.
- Masako is suffering serious trauma and has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
- Masako is a sincere Nice Girl, but suffered violent abuse that made her develop a Split Personality.
- Masako suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder.
- Inverted:
- Masako appears to be a completely deranged lunatic. However, she has a kind, sweet, and loving side to her personality as well.
- Face of a Thug
- Subverted: Masako may appear deranged, but she's actually Obfuscating Insanity.
- Double Subverted: ...Which is a facade, revealing her to be The Ophelia.
- Parodied: Masako runs around, carrying large and dangerous weapons and uses them to relieve her frustrations upon Kenji in a slapstick way. Masako also pops up near Kenji with a Nightmare Face every time, scaring the piss out of him.
- Zig Zagged: Masako alternates between All-Loving Hero and Token Evil Teammate.
- Averted: Masako is nice and sweet without the crazy, or or crazy without the sweet.
- Enforced: "Our show's source of humor will come from Masako switching between huggably cute to pant-wettingly scary.
- Lampshaded:
- "Hi, Kenji. Would you like TO DIE?!"
- "The puppy-dog eyes would work a lot better if you weren't holding a severed head, you know..."
- "Now she seems really adorable, but wait 'til she gets really ticked off... it ain't gonna be as pretty."
- Invoked:
- Masako isn't crazy, but Kenji assumes she'll snap one day.
- Masako is a straight-up whacko, but uses a cutsey facade to hide it because this way, people rarely suspect her and because it freaks her victims out.
- Exploited:
- Masako's team uses her to intimidate others, knowing that people are often creeped out by the dissonance between her cute appearance and unstable nature.
- Defied:
- Masako refuses to let insanity get the better of her and channels it into sociopathic heroism.
- Or she decides to finally Tame Her Anger and stop any new madness sprees.
- That, or she gives up on the cute side of her personality, perhaps believing it to be too weak.
- Discussed: "Run for it! She's adorable and deranged!"
- Conversed:
- "Man, she's as crazy as a June bug in July and twice as cute!"
- "This should be Masako's selling line: 'Come for the pretty face and sweet personality, stay for...your self-preservation.'"
- Implied: Masako is The Dreaded for several bad guys, who seem the most terrified of her out the group even though all we ever see of her is her standing around acting cute.
- Deconstructed:
- Masako is Ax-Crazy, because years of constant abuse from her family and friends has chipped away at her sanity and she can no longer bear the emotional pain.
- Masako is a nice person, but the stress inside her boils and she finally snaps and decides to hurt her loved ones.
- Masako's friends can't handle her psychotic episodes and either gradually fall away out of fear or frustration or snap back at her after a particularly bad episode.
- Masako's friends and family don't recognize her problems because she seems too cute to have serious issues. As a result, she doesn't get the psychological help she needs and ends up hurting someone.
- It's a facade to protect herself from the Crapsack World or Sucky School environment she lives in.
- Reconstructed:
- Masako channels her anger, stress and pain by going insane and physically and verbally lash out at her tormentors, justifying her actions. Between periods of Pay Evil unto Evil she's as cute and friendly as can be.
- Masako endures it and remains friendly but still manages to creep her friends and family out with her eerily calm behavior and occasionally crazy actions.
- Masako and her friends eventually decide to stay and help her - if eliminating the unstable side isn't plausible, then redirect it towards the bad guys or something.
- Masako isn't that unstable, there are still things she sees as going too far, and will openly show empathy or remorse for them.
- Masako decides that just because it's a Crapsack World she lives in doesn't mean she can't bring at least a little cheer into it. Even if the cheer is about as substantive as a piece of candy and she's still hurting inside, even if she can't truly be the innocent kid this world is so lacking, because of her own psychological issues, she's got enough to make a move towards fixing it. Maybe she can bring something to hope for and perhaps inspire others to bring some real cheer and niceness. It has to be better than being openly miserable or cruelly psychotic all the time, at least.
Oniichan, please go back to Cute and Psycho... OR I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF!!!
