Samus Is A Girl / Anime & Manga

Examples of Samus Is a Girl in anime and manga.

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• The acolytes in Agni's Philosophy are all presented to the viewer as robed, hooded individuals, so the viewer can be forgiven for assuming they are male until the titular character pulls off her hood, revealing that "he" is, in fact, a she.
• Sevotharte from Angel Sanctuary. The promising scientist Lailah's success elicited jealousy from her male peers, who raped her. Branded a Fallen Angel for becoming "tainted," she sold herself in desperation to Sandalphon, who whitened her hair and altered her face and body type. Since the true Sevothtarte died years ago in combat, she took his name and wore a tiara and veil to hide her identity after she ascended into the Seraph rank.
• Attack on Titan has three examples. Since Action Girls are considered normal and acceptable In-Universe, this trope is used on characters that are trying to hide their identity overall, and to give the reader Tomato Surprises.
  • The Titan Shifter with the ability to become the Cart Titan turns out to be a young woman named Pieck, even though unlike the Female Titan, the Cart Titan is not apparently feminine.^note This is because the author originally designed the Titan thinking on a male Shifter, but later changed his mind. In later appearances and flashbacks, her Titan form has more feminine facial features
  • During the Marley arc, the existence of a ninth Titan Shifter called the "Warhammer Titan" is revealed who is thought to be male since Willy Tybur said he is the one that has that Titan. It turns to be that the real Shifter is his sister, and he only used himself as a bait knowing that Eren would try to eat him to get his Titan powers.
  • In the same arc, Pieck and Galliard are trapped in a secret hole by a bearded soldier that turns out to be Yelena, a very tall woman wearing a fake beard, that hid her identity to hide her affiliation with Zeke, that at that moment was planning to betray Marley.
• Inverted in Baccano!, where Claire Stanfield, the expert assassin Luck had hired, turns out not to be the fatigues-wearing Action Survivor woman that'd been making her way across the train, but rather the redheaded conductor that was supposedly killed off very early on in the story.
• Enigmatic Minion Masquerade of Bakugan is actually Alice. She uses her Stat-O-Vision Sinister Mask to transform.
• There's a non-human example in Bakuten Shoot Beyblade. Despite what the dub makes of it, most of the bit-beasts have no known gender. Yuriy's Wolborg fell under this category until the battle with Kyōju in S3E14. When Yuriy employs his Novae Rog to end the match, a beautiful ice maiden is briefly shown right before Kyōju's beyblade is frozen solid by Wolborg. This is the only time a bit-beast is presented in a human form, but it is Wolborg because the tiara worn by the ice maiden resembles the crown on Wolborg's head.
• Bamboo Blade: Tamaki mentions the strongest kendoist she's ever seen, and her teammates assume she's talking about her father, but she actually means her mother.
• In the anime Bastard!! (1988) Arshes Nei was shown at first as a figure in full plate and rather bulky armor, which made impossible to tell that the character within that armor was, in fact, a slender female.
• In Berserk:
  • When Guts fights Casca upon their first meeting, he doesn't realize that Casca is woman until he knocks off her helmet.
  • At the victory ball after the Battle of Doldrey, Guts is struck speechless to see the usually-tomboyish Casca looking very feminine in a ballgown. After years of thinking of her as "one of the guys", this may have helped him think of her as a member of the opposite sex.
  • During the rescue of Griffith from imprisonment, Princess Charlotte admits that she mistook Casca for a man the first time they met (much to Guts and Judeau's amusement). But she adds that Casca looks more womanly now for some reason; Charlotte may not know it, but Casca and Guts got a Relationship Upgrade.
  • The “Flower Storm Monarch” of Elfhelm (Puck’s home) turns out to be a female elf called Danan. This was surprisingly for a good few readers as the Dark Horse translation was “Flower Storm King” though in the raw Japanese kanji Danan’s title roughly translates to “sovereign“ which is gender neutral allowing for the reveal.
• In Bleach, Yoruichi is a more long and drawn out version of this. As long as she remains in cat form, everyone assumes she's a man. In the manga, she tells Ichigo that most people who only know her as a cat think she's male because of her voice. Hilarity Ensues when she reveals that she is a woman.
• Blue Exorcist: In Episode 12 Yamada, who always wore a hood and never spoke, turns out to be Stripperific Action Girl named Shura, wearing a disguise to spy on our main characters.
  • In the 20th anime episode, the villain working with Neuhaus turns out to be his wife, despite having used a distinctly male voice up until The Reveal.
• In Blue Gender, when Marlene rolls in to save Yuji from the Blue, she is decked in full mecha armor. It is not until a little later that she opens her armor, revealing herself as a woman. Though he is as much surprised by the fact that she's human, given that he just woke up in the middle of a Bug War and saw nothing but carnage.
• A villainous example appeared in Brain Powerd — the enigmatic Baron who begins to appear late in the show is quite fearsome, helping the villain Jonathan transform his Grand Cher into a borderline Eldritch Abomination known as the "Baronz". His reasons seem mysterious and Chess Master-y, but... behind the mask, it's actually Jonathan's estranged mother, trying to protect and help her son despite being stuck on the wrong side of the conflict from him.
• Campione!:
  • Lancelot of the Lake used magic to have a deep voice and appear to be a man when she has her armor and helmet on.
  • Annie Carlton took on the masked and costumed persona of John Pluto Smith.
• Case Closed:
  • Natsuki Koshimizu is a quiet and short-haired young woman, who is believed by some of her fellow amateur Sleuths (and the audience) to be a boy. Then she shows up wearing a Sailor Fuku...
  Conan: "...So he is a she?!"
  • This trope makes a return with the character Masumi Sera. In her first appearance she at first appeared to be a rival love interest for Ran's affection, with the cast only discovering she's a woman when she starts school. This becomes a recurring theme, with characters constantly mistaking her for a male on their first meeting including Kaito Kid, who tapes her up and disguises himself as her. This leads to a rather comedic scene at the end of the case when Conan reveals this just in time for Sera to break free and re-enter in her underwear. To be fair though, she did use her masculine appearance to get into the men's restroom because there was a large line for the women's, so the confusion is understandable.
• In Cells at Work!, Monocytes usually go about their business in bulky hazmat suits and gasmasks that totally conceal their identities. But when pathogens show up, they shed their suits and become Macrophages; busty Ladies of War in maid outfits wielding enormous cleavers to reduce invaders and infected cells to messy chunks of cytoplasm.
• Due to the voice acting in the dub, German viewers often thought Digimon Tamers's Renamon was supposed to be "male" (or at least gender-neutral — it's a somewhat deliberately enigmatic digital lifeform in what's arguably a kids' show, after all). Which makes the final form a bit of a surprise.
  • Plenty of people were caught off guard when Cutemon in Digimon Fusion yelled that he was a boy around the middle of the series. Twisted even further in the dub — he's voiced by a male and still sounds adorable!
• In A Certain Magical Index, the villainous organization GREMLIN, which is mostly made up of people with Norse Mythology gimmicks, is led by someone called Odin. Surprise, Odin is Othinus, who looks like a 13-14 year old girl and is still powerful enough to Curb-Stomp Battle pretty much anyone since she indeed has the power of the Norse God Odin.
• Villainous example: for most of Deadman Wonderland Ganta assumes that the "Red Man" who killed his classmates was a man. She's not. In fact, she is Shiro, his close Forgotten Childhood Friend and a teenage girl at that.
• In Death Note, Misa Amane is revealed to the readers to be the second Kira soon after her activities become known to the other characters. In the English versions at least, Light and the investigators continue to refer to The Second Kira by the male pronoun (probably for the sake of convenience, as they use "he" when referring to the first Kira too) until they learn more about her.
• Noi of Dorohedoro does this in the first volume. She's one of the numerous masked badasses of the show; taller, bulkier and probably stronger than the entire male cast.
• Dororo: The titular character is revealed to be a girl. It doesn't help that she was told she was a boy by her parents.
• In the Dragon Warrior anime, Daisy saves Abel's hide a few times before he finds out she is a girl.
• In Durarara!!, Celty's gender isn't clear when she first appears thanks to camera angles and lighting, although her feminine form is much more apparent later on. It's apparently less obvious in-universe than it is to the viewers; neither Shizuo nor Tom knew that Celty was female until Shinra told them.
• One episode of Excel♡Saga concerns a mysterious masked man with a masculine voice. He and Nabeshin have a lot of Ho Yay, which Excel comments on — and then the mask is removed, showing a beautiful blond woman. Still with a masculine voice.
• In Eyeshield 21 there's Karin Koizumi, the quarterback of the Teikoku Alexanders. What makes her remarkable is that not only is she a female playing American Football, she's the quarterback of Japan's best high school football team.
• Fist of the North Star:
  • The Last General of Nanto, who dresses like a fearsome warlord. Once the helmet comes off though, the General is revealed to be none other than Yuria, who was presumed dead at the time. Of course when this is revealed Yuria gets captured by Raoh shortly after.
  • A badass inversion was used in Rei's debut. You see a woman in a pink cloak being harassed by thugs. You think a badass martial artist will jump in and save the day. But the "woman" in the pink cloak turns out to be martial arts badass Rei in disguise, luring the thugs to him.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • When Ed uses alchemy to destroy Lan Fan's mask in their fight, he's so shocked to see she's a girl that she's able to both destroy his automail arm and drop a bomb before he can react. Subverted the subtrope by not becoming Ed's love interest at all. In fact, she already has her own (there was a brief, mostly-played-for-laughs Ship Tease between Lan Fan's love interest and Ed's, though).
  • Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong. When Alex first mentions her she could have been a male as well, especially because her first name is a male name. Also, the "preview" image of her for the next chapter/episode in both the manga and anime is ambiguous◊.
• Full Metal Panic!: In the Second Raid, Mithril agent Wraith is revealed to be a woman. She disguised herself as an overweight man complete with a voice changer.
• Fushigi Yuugi has Soi, who was a person wearing a cloak for a few chapters before revealing herself as a woman.
• In the Gaiking CGI test footage, the pilot was revealed to be a woman. In its previous incarnations, Gaiking's pilots were both male.
• Happens twice in the Getter Robo series:
  • In Getter Robo Armageddon, at the beginning of the series the kid is daughter of Dr.Saotome initially using boy's clothing. After missile fall to Earth events, Genki Saotome is adopted by Benkei and revealed that he is a girl and having her name changed to Kei Kuruma.
  • Raikou Minamoto in New Getter Robo, who is revealed to be a woman only after Ryoma tackles her and ends up grabbing a handful.
• In the Giant Robo OVAs, Action Girl/Cool Big Sis Ginrei first appears in disguise as a masked Badass Longcoat to rescue Dr. Shizuma — for all of a minute, before suddenly changing into her trademark Chinese dress, and never using the "Iron Mask" disguise for the rest of the series.
• Glass Fleet combined this with Viewer Gender Confusion because Michel had a female voice actor. The big reveal isn't until episode seven. Afterwards, her style of dress does not change.
• Cagalli Yula Athha of Gundam SEED's tomboyish personality and androgynous clothing originally fools both Kira and Athrun into thinking she is a boy. Her gender confusion is also an in-joke to the viewers, as her voice actress Naomi Shindo usually voices young boys.
• The Halo Legends anthology does this a couple of times with the Spartan-IIs, due to them being 7-foot-tall Super Soldiers clad head-to-toe in Powered Armor:
  • "The Babysitter" uses this trope for Spartan-II sniper Cal-141, since she doesn't even speak for most of the short.
  • Done again in "Homecoming", where Spartan-II Daisy-023, after saving a platoon from a Covenant ambush, is revealed to be a girl when she removes her helmet. The helmet even kind of looks like Samus's.◊
• With Hinagiku taking the role of Silver Red (a superhero of a Sentai parody), Hayate the Combat Butler is setting itself up for this one. The other characters even think Red is a guy, despite the significant lack of male form (not just Hina's Pettanko status).
• Hetalia: Axis Powers has Prussia not realize Hungary is a female. It doesn't help that Hungary did not dress stereotypically female when she was a child.
• Ice Revolution: Most of Masaka's friends at the skating rink thought she was a boy...until she took the ice for her first performance. Heck, her own coach didn't even notice she was a girl until she told him.
• Brilliantly pulled in Infinite Stratos. Ichika accomplishes the impossible and moves an IS, something that's said to be impossible to be done by males. He gets himself enrolled in an all-girl school... then after a while, another male by the name of Charles Dunois is transferred into the class and said to have accomplished the same feat. He is awfully shy around Ichika in the locker room and refuses to change with him, something Ichika finds quite strange and tries to lightheartedly force the issue, only to provoke the other boy into running away. When he returns to their mutual room, Dunois is in the shower and Ichika enters the bathroom just as the former was about to leave the cubicle. Yup, Dunois is definitely not a guy. "He" later explains that as an illegitimate child, she was kept in secrecy until a few years ago when she was tested and found to have a good aptitude at using an IS. Her disguise as a boy served two reasons: first, as a publicity stunt to her father's company which was falling behind in IS development and second, as a way to get close to Ichika and spy on him. A few days later, Ichika's class receives another transfer student. Everyone, say hello to Charlotte Dunois. Naturally, everyone in the class knows Charlotte and Ichika used the bathhouse together the previous night and instantly make the assumption he must've known and took advantage of it. Cue Rin bursting into the classroom with her IS and firing a full-powered shot at Ichika's head.
  • And as a little extra, Charles/Charlotte also happens to be a Char Clone and later becomes a Love Interest for Ichika.
    • And as a little extra extra, her nickname, given to her by Ichika, IS Char. Go figure.
• Kei in IRIA: Zeiram the Animation. She's pre-adolescent, so there's no way to distinguish that she's a girl dressed in boy's clothes until late in the series when Fujikuro literally sniffed out her gender.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Harumi takes off her helmet and baggy spacesuit to reveal she's a Hospital Hottie, causing Dr. Kitaguchi to lose a Side Bet that their latest crewmember would not be a woman.
• Alma Jinnai from Jewelpet Twinkle☆ is introduced as a boy...then in Episode 24, Opal turns "him" back into "his" true form, a girl.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • In Part 2, Battle Tendency, Joseph Joestar and Caesar go to meet Caesar's mentor. When Joseph finally meets her, she is initially fully dressed and her face is concealed, and he thinks she must be a man...until she reveals her face.
  • In Part 7, Steel Ball Run, Hot Pants was initially assumed to be a guy, and drawn with masculine features like broad shoulders and square chin. We find out she's a woman at the end of her introductory arc. From that point on, she began to be drawn in a more feminine style.
  • In Part 8, JoJolion, Josuke is attacked by Going Underground/Born This Way, a Stand that looks like a man riding a motorcycle. Turns out the user is Kei Nijimura, the Higashikata family maid.
• Stir from King of Bandit Jing does this. She shows up in a full-plate armor to participate a gladiator duel. Everyone assumes she's a guy (as all the other participants were males), and were extremely surprised when her mask broke.
• Kino's Journey: Kino is a girl. The anime doesn't tell you until the fourth episode and you don't find out for quite a while in the non-English novels, before which most viewers tend to either assume she's a boy or think "But he could be...". The people who figured it out before hand got to give themselves a good pat on the back when her gender was finally revealed. Strangely, it is Japan in which this is easy to guess due to seemingly Crossdressing Voices, the English dub gives the character a much more ambiguous voice. Though it's not uncommon in anime for adolescent males to have distinctly effeminate voice.
• In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Princess Rona initially introduces herself as the MALE bodyguard Vee to the decoy princess because she wanted to get to know the people of Cappytown as a normal person. It's not until her helmet falls off later on that any real girlishness is revealed. She still manages to kick Dedede's ass at the end in a swordfight even after being revealed as the actual princess. Though in this case, the deception was intentional, not just that wearing that particular suit or whatever was the most logical thing to do for an action hero.
• Reversed in Liar Game in the second round where the seemingly innocent "Yuji" is revealed to be the cross dressing Mr. X.
• Lupin III: Princess of the Breeze has Lupin fighting a Sky Pirate in a bird-beak mask. When Lupin pushes on the pirate's chest to keep them away from him, the pirate is upset. It turns out she is a young girl. Cue slapping, and Lupin getting knocked off of the airship.
• Early on in Lycoris Recoil, Chisato and Takina are tasked with protecting a hacker named Walnut, who wears a mascot costume with a voice modifier. It ultimately turns out that Walnut is a teenage girl named Kurumi.
• In Maoyu, The Hero was greatly surprised to find that The Demon King is a really cute girl.
• In the manga adaptation of Mega Man 6, Centaur Man is revealed to actually be a woman who disguises as a male and has a crush on Knight Man. It doesn't carry over into any other adaptations, but many fans will still argue that it's canon.
• Gender-inverted in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, where Chiyo is shocked at first to learn that Sakiko Yumeno, the author of her favorite shoujo romance manga Let's Fall in Love, is the Lipstick de Plume for her Tall, Dark, and Handsome crush Umetaro Nozaki. This revelation changes nothing about her feelings.
• In Muhyo and Roji, Yu "Biko" Abiko is an old friend of Muhyo's. Biko has short and unkempt hair, wears a wizard hat with a loose robe and uses the pronoun boku(common among boys and tomboyish girls). As such, Roji's surprised when Biko turns out to be a girl.
• In My Hero Academia, the seventh wielder of One for All and the master of All Might was only known as "Shimura" (her last name) for a while. About 40 chapters later, her full name was revealed as "Shimura Nana," then the next chapter features her in a flashback. Since All Might is the living embodiment of manliness, his teacher and predecessor turning out to be a woman is pretty surprising.
• Naruto:
  • Used during the Land of Birds filler arc. An armored, flying specter wielding a naginata appeared to haunt a daimyo's castle which had recently seen great misfortune; the specter seemed intent on uncovering if an assassin had slain the former daimyo and his daughter. It was eventually revealed that the specter was Toki, the supposedly deceased daughter; after her twin brother Sagi and their father were poisoned, she disguised herself as Sagi in order to assume the lordship and discover the killer's identity.
  • Subverted much earlier during the Land of Waves of arc. Haku's first appearance showed him to be highly-skilled and convinced even Kakashi that he was a threat while wearing bulky robes that could disguise a feminine form. A chance meeting with Naruto while in civvies set up the possibility of a forbidden romance...and then Haku had an Unsettling Gender-Reveal.
• Odd variation in Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Earlier in the manga we met Paio Zi, a member of a group of bounty hunters pursuing Nodoka had a rather..."healthy" appreciation for breasts boobies that bordered on the obsessive. Most readers found this character quite disturbing...until a later chapter mostly set in a bathhouse, where the hunters are encountered again under peaceful circumstances, and Paio is revealed to be a girl, who proceeds to Skinship Grope the hell out of pretty much everybody within reach (and she moves fast), to the amusement of the fans. This comes across as a bit of a Double Standard, but she's really a lot less threatening without her fighting costume, which is rather monstrous and effectively quadruples (at least!) her body mass.
• Rei in the manga version of Neon Genesis Evangelion when she's still inside the Eva. In the confusion of the battle, Shinji can't tell if anyone is inside the Eva (Rei's name comes up, but that seems to be a thought bubble rather than spoken dialogue on Misato's part). Shinji cries out (in the English translation), "Our guy's getting clobbered!" But when he gets to NERV headquarters, he still seems to think he was saved by a robot. At any rate, as soon as the reader — and, a few panels later, Shinji — actually sees Rei, it's clear she's female — along with all sorts of other types of fanservice / Fan Disservice.
  • Carefully averted in Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 with Asuka, who arrives in Unit 02 to fight the Angel. Shinji had never seen her or her Eva before but when he does comment on the battle, he doesn't use any third-person pronouns in either the Japanese original or the English dub.
• When most people hear of the assassin Noir, they assume it to the be the codename for a male assassin, as opposed to the fact that it is actually two girls.
  • Especially ironic, since eventually it's revealed that Noir in fact originally referred to two female killers as long as thousand years ago.
• One Piece:
  • Yamato, Kaido's Antagonistic Offspring, is actually his daughter, not his son as was initially claimed. Turns out, he's such a huge Fangirl for Kozuki Oden that he imitates him in every way possible... including calling himself a man when he biologically isn't purely because Oden was a guy. Zig-zagged, though, considering that everyone else calls him Kaido's son, leading to an Ambiguous Gender Identity.
  • In the fourth movie, the little kid whom Luffy and Co. encountered is revealed to be a girl dressed in boy's clothing near the end.
  • Played With. When finally introduced after years of being The Ghost, Dr. Vegapunk appears to be revealed to be a woman, only for it to turn out that he actually created "satellites" that he split his personality amongst, some of which are female but others are male.
• Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi, if you watch the first episode unspoiled, which is pretty much impossible nowadays.
• Yellow in Pokémon Adventures. Funnily enough, by the time of the reveal the only ones shocked by it are Red, Crystal, and later Gold. Red actually met her prior to formally meeting her however it's unknown if he ever finds out the girl he rescued was Yellow.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Kidd Summers at the start of Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, literally in armor. Semi-justified by the fact that everyone at the festival is in quasi-medieval costume.
  • Anabel and Angie are both tomboys who Ash mistook for boys. Incidentally, they both end up developing a crush on Ash.
  • Zoroark turns out to be female in the movie.
  • Georgia's Pawniard/Bisharp, despite being voiced by a man, is revealed to be female in her debut episode.
  • This happened to Jessie twice. She thought her Yanmega and Pumpkaboo were both male.
• Queen Millennia: The male-looking leader of the Millennial Thieves turns out to be Selene, Yayoi's sister.
• Ranma ½:
  • Ranma's Unlucky Childhood Friend Ukyō is the series' foremost example. Having met her at a very young age, Ranma always believed her to be another boy. After a bitter grudge match in which she forces him to fight "seriously", he is stunned to discover she is actually a girl. Hilarity Ensues:
    Ranma: Since when are you...
    Ukyō: ...a girl? Since I was born, idiot.
    [Ranma pours hot water on her]
    Ukyō: Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot! [punches Ranma] Why the hell did you do that, ya jackass?!
    Ranma: Hey, you didn't turn back into a guy.
    Ukyō: Now you listen, and you listen good: I am one hundred...per-cent...woman!
  • Exemplified and subverted again by the character Herb. When the tall, dark, powerful stranger who handily defeats Ranma is shown to be a woman, the cast reacts with surprise and shock. However, the subversion comes as it turns out that Herb is the Prince of the Musk Dynasty, who, having fallen into the same cursed spring as Ranma, also turns into a woman.
  • This is then inverted by Konatsu and Tsubasa, Ukyo's would-be suitors who everyone (including the audience) believed to be girls, right up until the very final page of their introductory story arcs — when their outfits are destroyed, one way or another.
• A bit of a drawn-out occurrence appears in Reborn! (2004). It is pretty much impossible to tell I-pin's gender, since she is a baby with an egg-shaped head that is mostly bald...then she gets hit with the 10-year Bazooka, revealing that she will grow into a beautiful Cute Bruiser in the future. No romance (again, baby) but she does spend a lot of time with Lambo.
• In Adolescence of Utena, Saionji cuts Utena's shirt in their duel, leading to the following exchange:
  Saionji: You're a girl?
  Utena: I don't remember saying I was a boy!
• Haruka in Sailor Moon, although there's no romance arc beyond her flirting with Usagi for the fun of it; she's already taken...by a woman, which helped hide her gender. Though due the fact that she appeared in the anime in her Senshi form before the reveal at the end of the episode introducing her, viewers are not as shocked as the characters. (It should be noted that before this episode, Uranus and Neptune DID show up in senshi form, but all the viewer was shown was a silhouette and the credits only listed them as "Mysterious Senshi 1 and 2". Also, for the first few Uranus and Neptune appearances in the original manga, they were perceived not as two mysterious senshi, but as a mysterious senshi/Tuxedo Mask pair; and Haruka's flirting with Usagi was much heavier. It wasn't until after they joined with the other senshi that Uranus was perceived as a woman rather than a man.
• In Sakura Trick, the person Kotone is betrothed to is revealed to be a woman named Sora.
• In the original series plan for Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Berg Katse would have turned out to be a woman disguised as a man. About halfway through, the producers changed their minds...
• Scoop Hunter Tamon (an obscure Ishigaki Yuuki one-shot manga) pulls this off in the third chapter, "Papillion", where Tamon and his sidekick investigates the European Mad Bomber known as Papillion (gender, age, identity, all unknown) who's planning a terrorist attack in Japan. Tamon and his sidekick managed to save a girl named Yuki Williams from one of Papillion's bombs, and Tamon managed to take down the terrorist he assumed is Papillion shortly, while his sidekick then falls for Yuki as a romantic relationship starts blooming; but it turns out the arrested suspect is only the first-generation bomber known as Papillion - the real Papillion is actually Yuki, his daughter and protege, with the first bombing in Tokyo a mere diversion as she prepares to carry out another. There's a bit of foreshadowing before Yuki's revelation, where she admits she's half-British from her father's side and the arrested terrorist suspect is the sole Caucasian character in the entire story.
• In Sgt. Frog, many characters first think that Private Tamama is a female due to his cute appearance and voice. Later on in the series, Tamama himself, along with most of the rest of the cast, falls victim to this trope when a Keronian named Karara comes to Earth to see the Keroro Platoon (known as the "ARMPIT" Platoon in Funimation's dub ^note which is either a Woolseyism, a Gag Dub, or a Macekre depending on who's asked). It's not made apparent that she's female until she leaves a goodbye note when she leaves at the end of the episode, saying that Tamama left such a huge impression on her that she wants to marry him when she grows up. In all the character's defense, an actual female Keronian hadn't shown up before then.
• Shimoneta inverts it with Oboro, who looks and sounds so feminine, that no one realizes he's actually a male. At least, not until the locker-room scene between him and Tanukichi in Episode 9. When Tanukichi tries to tell Ayame about it, she finds it so hard to believe that she dismisses it as a weak excuse for his failure to catch the underwear thieves.
• Played with in Space Pirate Mito. During a fight, Big Bad Ranban's helmet is knocked off, revealing not only a female face underneath, but the same face as Aoi's mother, the titular Mito. Ranban reveals that it's just a mail suit, which Mito also wears, modeled on the first queen of the galaxy. Later on, however, it's revealed that Ranban never differentiated between genders, as his species usually does at puberty, and is thus a hermaphrodite.
• Parodied in Steel Fist Riku. Chikara Toudou arrives to challenge Riku's father, but since he's not around, he decides to challenge the "son", Riku, instead. At this point, Riku has her chest bound flat, so it's understandable. But then, Riku tells him she's a girl, and he accuses her of pretending to try and get out of the fight. Then, during the fight, he notices the bump under Riku's shirt...and thinks "he" is concealing a weapon there. He finally gets it after he grabs her breast.
• The John Titor character in Steins;Gate is actually Suzuha Amane. The anime even uses male voice actor in John Titor's email conversations with protagonist Okabe before the eventual reveal.
• In the second season of Sword Art Online, Yuuki's ^note known at this point as Zekken badassery is established when she defeats Kirito in a duel. The only reason the audience doesn't know she's a girl, however, is because the duel takes place offscreen, and we only see it as a combination of :Liz relating the story to Asuna, who wasn't present at the fight, the fact that Liz forgot to mention her gender, and Asuna's imagining of the scene (presented as a kind of pseudo-flashback), where she pictures Zekken to be some badass dude in bulky black armor. Hilariously, upon finding out, Asuna suspects Kirito lost because the reveal distracted him, but in a later montage, it shows that she still defeats him, mainly because of her AIDS, which for the past three years has forced her to live full time in the virtual world while her real body undergoes treatment. As a result, she has a whole year more virtual life than Kirito, and he went so far as to say that if she was in SAO, she would have gotten the Dual Wielding skill, not him.
  • In Progressive, Liten is introduced as a heavily armored "tank" player with a helmet that conceals the face, and is initially not referred to with gender-specific pronouns in the illustrated preview page introducing Liten. Much to Kirito's surprise, Liten is revealed to be a girl after she takes off her helmet.
  • In the Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online spinoff, during Squad Jam 2, LLENN meets an androgynous player named Clarence who ends up Playing Possum after LLENN kills the rest of "his" team. She gives Clarence a kiss in exchange for "his" magazines, then finds out after the fact that Clarence is a woman. The localization of the light novel even refers to her with male pronouns until the revelation.
• Tokyo Ghoul and its Spin-Offs use this trope, primarily in regards to their Big Bads.
  • In the main series, the mysterious, legendary and greatly-feared One-Eyed Owl/King is revealed to be a young woman. People just assume the King/Owl is a man, as the loose cloak and massive Kakuja armor she wears completely concealed her form, making it easy for her own father Yoshimura to impersonate her more than once. In a further twist, said woman is Eto, the childlike supposed-henchman who uses her male persona to be a King Incognito, and Sen Takatsuki, Kaneki’s favorite author whom he personally met at a book signing.
  • Lantern, the Serial Killer Ghoul from the Prequel Jack. Wearing a Jack-o-Lantern mask and a large trench coat, she takes full advantage of people assuming that Lantern is a man. Once again, it turns out to be someone the characters knew — Uruka Minami, who inserted herself into Arima’s investigation on her.
  • The unnamed leader of the Skull Gang in the Joker One-Shot. Known as a deadly and vicious Ghoul terrorizing the 13th Ward, the fact that she turns out to be a pretty teenage girl who Juuzou saved from a train molester takes Hanbee completely by surprise.
  • In-universe, it takes until after her apparent death for the CCG to figure out that Rize Kamishiro, the Binge Eater, was probably a woman based on her pattern of luring and devouring young men, feigning harmlessness and fear so they'd want to protect her.
• During the Neo TV arc in Triage X, the terrorist leader Wild Hunt is later revealed to be a woman named Siren who can change her voice by manipulating her throat.
• A scene in Voltes V shows a ninja doing a badass training montage. The ninja takes his mask off to reveal that he is Megumi, the only female in the Voltes team.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Blair initially disguised herself as a boy, but during her introductory episode, she turns out to be a girl. She pulls this off again during her second appearance, but later embraces her femininity (sort of) when she enters Duel Academy for real.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, the helmeted D-Wheeler shown in the third intro sequence turns out to be a blond woman named Sherry. (Yusei doesn't truly realize she's a woman until the end of the first part of the two-part episode, but even before then, the cards she uses gives him and the viewers a clue that his opponent is a woman: mostly female monsters with a Lady of War theme, like Sherry herself, and flower-themed Trap Cards).
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
  • While not revealed In-Universe, the OCG released human versions of the Four Heavenly Dragons, revealing the fact that Clear Wing Synchro Dragon is actually female.
  • Reira Akaba. The Japanese version has characters refer to them with gender-neutral pronouns, and the character wears a hoodie and hat to cover her hair, making her look like a boy. The dub refers to her as male, but gives her a gender-neutral name, Riley. Both fans and characters assumed Reira to be a boy, until The Reveal later on, when she takes off her hat and hoodie, revealing her long hair and feminine appearance.
• Yuusha Gojo Kumiai Kouryuugata Keijiban takes place on an interdimensional message board for "heroes" of all types, with new users given the generic handle "Hero." Many chapters feature a hero whose gender isn't revealed for several pages, including a Japanese schoolgirl summoned into another world and saddled with a divided party, Wandering Sword who wants to get closer to catgirls, and a knight burdened with a womanizing holy sword that transforms into a handsome man.
• Mukuro from YuYu Hakusho. She even disguises her voice and covers her face when she is first introduced. She also refers to herself with the very masculine pronoun "ore" in Japanese, and, believe it or not, Hiei is her Bob.
• The Black Knight in The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is huge, covered head to toe in black armor, and has a deep-sounding distorted voice. It’s only when Usato’s Wrong Context Magic breaks the armor that a small and petite girl, Felm, is revealed.

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