Walking Spoiler / Visual Novels

• In the Ace Attorney, most of the culprits count, given that they're rarely introduced as murderers, are occasionally friendly with the protagonists, and usually are someone quite different Beneath the Mask. This goes double for the main villains, since they're involved with the most plot twists and interact most with the main characters, and triple for the villains of Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice, who double as the culprits of the first cases.
  • Trials and Tribulations has Diego Armando, Mia's co-counsel for her first case, who was poisoned shortly afterwards. Discussing anything other than these facts, such as his appearance, personality, and relationship with Mia, will spoil that he survived the poison and is the true identity of the prosecutor Godot.
  • The Big Bad of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies cannot be discussed without revealing a) that he exists, b) that he is intimately connected to Athena and Simon's backstories ( having committed the crime Simon was imprisoned for), and c)where he's been Hidden in Plain Sight for the entire game.
  • For a non-villainous example, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice has Betty de Famme, the twin sister of the magician Bonny de Famme in episode 2. While she first appears very early into the episode, her existence is kept secret until about two-thirds of the way through, with her impersonating Bonny until that point and players being led to believe both twins are a single person. Simply mentioning Betty's existence may tip people off that a Twin Switch is the explanation for "Bonny" constantly changing from nice to aggressive between scenes.
  • Another non-villainous example, this one from The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, is Daley Vigil. One of the mysteries of episode 4 involves looking for him at the request of his wife, and eventually you find that he has disguised himself as a beggar named "Gossip". In addition to this, he is deeply connected to the events that transpired ten years prior to the start of the story, even if he himself doesn't remember all of it.
  • Kazuma Asogi is involved in a lot of spoilers for the main character's best friend who's introduced from the get-go. Basically the only thing he's involved with that isn't a spoiler is that he smuggles Ryunnosuke to England.
• The Playwright, aka TRAGEDY, in BAD END THEATER is hard to talk about without revealing the fact that she's The Director's girlfriend and she's the one really running the BAD END THEATER behind the scenes, as seen in the Omega Ending.
• A Clockwork Ley Line: The Borderline of Dusk: Michiru and Kasumi are this, as the former turns out to actually not be Michiru, but his older brother Mitsuyoshi who went to the school in the real Michiru's place, explaining his lack of mana, and the latter is the older twin sister of Shizuka Murakumo, the identity of the Ghost, Sumi-chan, and the one whose mana is used to bring forth the Realm of Night.
• In Choices: Stories You Play, several Big Bads are this:
  • In Veil of Secrets, Jeff Duffy cannot be discussed without getting into his actions as the Birchport Killer, as well as his past and what led him to murder at least 4 people, 3 of whom are members of the ruling family.
  • In The Royal Romance series, there's Anton Severus, the terrorist leader who wants to assassinate King Liam and usurp the throne in Book 3. Then there's Barthelemy Beaumont from The Royal Heir Book 3, who is revealed to be Anton's backer, and is thought to be the root cause of all the threats to the Cordonian monarchy throughout the entire series... until the reveal of the Greater-Scope Villain in The Royal Finale.
  • There's also April Morris, who cannot be discussed without revealing that she's the Murderer at Homecoming.
• Da Capo 4 somehow manages to have its main heroine Sagisawa Arisa be a Walking Spoiler, owing to her spending pretty much the entire game masquerading as someone else, and the mere fact that there are technically two versions of Arisu walking around is only very distantly implied prior to The Reveal.
• Danganronpa: Due to the massive amount of plot twists they have in the franchise as well as many characters who don't always appear what they seem at first, several of them end up becoming this.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
    • Several characters are spoilers just by existing. Genocide Jack, Mukuro Ikusaba, and the original headmaster of the academy, Jin Kirigiri, in addition to Alter Ego. The former three were all suspected of being the Mastermind at one point or another, while the latter is a creation by one of the students (Chihiro) after he has been murdered in Chapter 2. In addition, the four of them are hard to talk about without revealing spoiler-ish details of another character (Jack being the Split Personality of Toko, Mukuro being the sister of the actual Mastermind, Jin being Kyoko's father, and Alter Ego being meant to serve as a replacement for the now-dead Chihiro). Jack/Jill was introduced as a possible suspect for the murder in Chapter Two of the first game only to find that she didn't commit the murder thus spoiling parts of the class trial. Also, using pronouns when referring to Jack and Chihiro is difficult to do without spoiling her true gender and his status as a Wholesome Crossdresser, respectively.
    • Junko Enoshima is also this for being the Big Bad of the series, with Monokuma merely being a robot proxy she speaks through. The one you met at the start was just her sister Mukuro disguised as her. Her being the mastermind of all games is also a spoiler, since she appearances to die at the end of the first game. However, the future installments don't have a problem talking about her, but still keep her continued presence as a spoiler. Also, it is she who unveils the big reveal that the world is a post-apocalyptic dystopia with her as the Evil Overlord in control.
    • The Ultimate Despair, by extension, since they are the ones responsible for the state of the world and the current rulers of it.
  • Ryōko Otanashi and Yasuke Matsuda, the main characters of Danganronpa Zero, full stop. Very little can be said about them bar what we know initially without giving away that Yasuke is the conspirator and lover of Junko Enoshima, and Ryouko is an amnesiac Junko, pretty much giving away the entire plot of the book.
  • For Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the entirety of the cast can be considered this, since they are all (except Chiaki) amnesiac members of the Ultimate Despair. In particular:
    • Izuru Kamukura, one of the masterminds. Whether you start with his true identity as the amnesiac, alternate, super-powered self of our protagonist Hajime, or the reveal that he was never loyal to Junko nor even evil at all, it's impossible to discuss anything about him without spoiling something from the game or the anime.
    • The Ultimate Impostor. His Byakuya Togami disguise is a spoiler for Togami surviving the first game, and the Impostor's existence is a spoiler in and of itself, as until his identity is revealed the game leads you to believe he is the real Togami - drastic weight gain, sudden personality change, and death included.
    • Nagito Komaeda. Just trying to explain this guy is impossible without spoiling something, given that he already reveals a large change in personality in the first Chapter of the game. Not the kind, mild-mannered boy we knew, Nagito is one of the main villains, actually obsessed with hope to the degree he would do anything for it, and does by masterminding the first murder and, eventually, his own, leading to the deaths of the Ultimate Imposter, Teruteru Hanamura, and Chiaki Nanami.
    • Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu is a variation of this trope. His free time events are locked until the fourth chapter as they went on to spoil his relationship with Peko Pekoyama, the second chapter class trial outcome, and his resulting Character Development afterwards.
    • It's basically impossible to talk about Chiaki Nanami to people who haven't finished both the second game and the anime. The one you meet in this game is an AI acting as a benevolent mole for the Future Foundation, who gives her life to protect the students. That by itself is pretty spoilerific, but then the anime reveals she was based off a real Chiaki Nanami, who was the catalyst for her classmates' fall into despair and Izuru's decision to turn on Junko.
    • The Future Foundation, a mysterious organization. Monokuma/Junko leads the characters into thinking that they are a Nebulous Evil Organisation akin to the Ultimate Despair who are responsible for the new killing game, only to find out they were Good All Along and La Résistance against the Ultimate Despair; some of the members are the survivors of the first game.
    • To a lesser extent, the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case introduce Sato and Fuyuhiko's sister Natsumi, both of whom were unknown to the player before. The fact Fuyuhiko killed Sato in revenge for Sato killing his sister comes across as a huge spoiler for that game and explains the motives of the second chapter.
  • Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls:
    • Monaca Towa, a member of the Warriors of Hope, initially appears to be the Token Good Teammate and a Wheelchair Woobie. She is not as nice as she first appears; how bad she really is, as well as her true plans and involvement in the game's backstory, aren't apparent at first. It's thus difficult to talk about her without spoiling her status as the callous, abusive true mastermind who does not care about building a utopia for children, as she is a partner of Junko who helped develop her army of Monokuma robots and wants to help her spread Despair.
    • Tokuichi Towa also reveals a ton about the backstory of Monaca and Haiji.
    • Shirokuma and Kurokuma. The former initially appears to be a helpful ally of the heroines and a non-evil Monokuma robot, while the latter appears to be merely an incompetent advisor to the Warriors of Hope. Not only are they the same person, that person is Junko Enoshima, still alive as an AI and helping Monaca spread despair.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
    • Both Kaede Akamatsu and Shuichi Saihara. After promotional materials showed the former as the main protagonist, she got executed in the first chapter, thus making her a Decoy Protagonist. The latter becomes the true protagonist of the story from that point on (even in the bonus modes), thus making both of them very hard to talk about.
    • While Rantaro Amami was the first to die and was mostly Out of Focus when he was alive, he's nigh-impossible to talk about once you learn about his talent, which helps lead to a massive plot twist; that there was a prior killing game which he survived, giving him the talent of Ultimate Survivor.
    • To a lesser extent, Korekiyo's unnamed older sister qualifies due to being one of Korekiyo's primary motives for committing murder, thus spoiling most of the third trial. He does bring her up during his Free Time Events, but the post-trial reveals that she was in an incestuous relationship with him and that she now functions as his Tulpa.
    • After Kokichi exposed Maki Harukawa for lying about her talent, the latter's role in the story changes, and thus she became this trope. Her Ultimate Child Caregiver talent was a cover for her real talent as the Ultimate Assassin. In fact, in a similar vain to Fuyuhiko as listed above, her free time events with Shuichi are locked until after her true talent was revealed.
    • Tsumugi Shirogane appears to be just another student, but is the current mastermind. She also is the one to reveal the truth about the characters being mind-wiped Reality Tv contestants, and the confrontation with her leads to The Reveal that the game takes place in an Alternate Universe from the original series, which is in-universe fiction.
• Doki Doki Literature Club!:
  • Much like Undertale, the game itself is an example of this trope, since it's nigh-on impossible to discuss in detail without revealing its true nature, and thus is best enjoyed either going in blind, or watching another play the game blind.
  • Monika is this, due to the reveal that's she's hijacked the visual novel itself and is the one responsible for the story's dark turn, among other things.
  • Everything about Natsuki's father falls under this due to the kind of parent he is and thus spoiling the reveal and cause of Natsuki's home life.
• ClockUp's Euphoria: It's hard to mention Nemu, Keisuke, or Kanae without revealing at least one major spoiler. For the two girls, it's the Betty and Veronica Switch; for the guy, it's his involvement with those two girls.
• Fatal Twelve has Miharu, Lethe, and Dianna. Miharu, Rinka's friend, turns out to have won the prior Divine Selection, became Parca's vessel, and whose suicide starts off the current Divine Selection. Lethe, a stray cat that Rinka took in, turns out to be the strange man that sometimes appears in her dreams and was the pet cat of her great-great grandmother. Finally, Dianna, Rinka's great-great-great aunt, who died in a fire, turns out to be the true identity of Parca, the goddess who presides over Divine Selection, as well as its thirteenth participant.
• No less than four of the love interests in Hatoful Boyfriend have a ton of associated spoilers for the Kudzu Plot of the darker routes and backstories. Most of these come up in fandom discussion and/or sequels and manga expansions. In particular:
  • Nageki Fujishiro is the ghost of a mourning dove who immolated himself five years prior to the game to prevent the virus he carries being used as a biological superweapon.
  • Dr. Shuu (a false identity) works for the Hawk Party to destroy humanity out of affection for Ryouta Kawara's late father.
  • Nanaki Kazuaki was "assisted in suicide" and his identity stolen by Nageki's childhood friend Hitori Uzune to seek revenge for Nageki's death.
  • Yuuya Sakazaki is a Teen Superspy working for the Dove Party.
• Heart of the Woods has Evelyn Fischer, Morgan's mother and the mayor of Eysenfeld; the most you can say about her is that she's a rather cold person with a bad relationship with her daughter. It turns out that she's actually "The Moonsick One," a fairy possessing the body of the real Evelyn Fischer who has stolen many people's bodies over the years, including that of Abigail (the only one whose soul survived the process). Revealing who or what Evelyn really is will inevitably spoil many plot twists, especially those regarding the fantasy elements of the story.
• In her tears were my light, Nil is directly responsible for the main conflict but doesn't reveal herself right away. She is also the Literal Split Personality of Space.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • Hanyuu is the real Oyashiro-sama, despises violence, and tries to change fate over and over, hence the reason for the repeating worlds. In the anime, they censored out Rika's screams to Hanyuu as Hanyuu stabbed herself in front of Rika and Shion, and made you believe that only those who heard Hanyuu were crazy (Rena, Keiichi, etc.), or else too high up on the Hinamizawa Syndrome scale. Then there's how the form she takes in the anime isn't even her real form (add about 10 years to that and you get her true form).
  • Rika herself can also be considered this, as she's the only one of the main characters who really knows what's going on due to being aware of the "Groundhog Day" Loop Hanyuu created. This isn't revealed until much later in the story.
• While Momo and Celeste can also qualify, HuniePop has Venus, the Goddess of Love and Kyu's boss, who only shows up after you've slept with each of the eight normal girls and is presented as your final challenge.
• Idol Magical Girl Chiru Chiru Michiru has Thanatochu, Kazuki's magical mouse companion that's helping her collect the Chaos Medals. He turns out to be the Big Bad, who used Kazuki to collect the medals and steals her wish for him to regain his true power, revealing himself to actually be an entity called Ghost.
• Long Live the Queen has a few of these, but of particular note are the two late game characters, the Kraken or Togami. The Kraken only appears if you lay waste to the entire Shanjian fleet using magic, and Togami appears without warning if you fail to dispose of the fleet at all.
• Memory's Dogma has two of these, the first being Sorano Mizunashi, who was killed prior to the events of the story. She turns out not only to be a "manifestor" that can read people's thoughts, but is also still alive. The second is Kuroda Renjuro, the head of the Connect Center, who turns out be the Big Bad and behind everything bad in the story, even being connected as far back as to the death of Reina Orikasa's mentor.
• Miniature Garden has at least four.
  • The first is Itsuki Orimoto, who turns out to be a False Friend for Yasunari Iguchi and Ayana Sakura and is also connected to things revolving around the amnesia medicine.
  • The second is Yasunari's real father, who can be best summed up as the Big Good.
  • The third is Sumika Shibaya, who turns out to have been killed several decades prior to the events of the VN and that she persists as a ghosts of sorts within Ayana's childhood doll and later the school, her presence being the reason the characters were trapped there.
  • The fourth is the Miniature Festival itself, which turns out to be a cover for the test subjects of the amnesia-inducing medicine.
• Sumika Kagami in Muv-Luv Alternative, due to her suspicious absence in Unlimited. It's impossible to say anything about Sumika in the Alternative timeline without mentioning her status as the 00 Unit, and her involvement in Alternative IV.
  • It's also very hard to talk about Jinguuji Marimo without mentionning her gruesome death at the hands of a Soldier-class BETA, kickstarting Takeru's Heroic BSoD.
• Mystic Messenger has three; Unknown, Rika, and V. While they are present from the beginning, their true role is not the fully revealed until the Seven route (Unknown) and Secret Ending 001 (Rika and V). Unknown, the mysterious hacker who is built up as the Big Bad, is actually Seven’s long-lost brother Saeran who was kidnapped and indoctrinated into Mint Eye. Rika is not only still alive, but she's also mentally ill and The Man Behind the Man to Unknown, as she is the founder of Mint Eye. Meanwhile, V, who acts suspiciously and initially seems to be The Man Behind the Man himself, has actually been physically and mentally abused by her for the past few years, ever since she refused to stick to her treatment. His secrecy is his attempt to protect the RFA members from the Awful Truth about Rika.
• For Nanairo Reincarnation, Kotori is difficult to talk about due to the fact that the story drops a bombshell revealing her to be Dead All Along and one of the victims of the killer that's been abducting and killing various girls.
• The Zero Escape trilogy tends to have these.
  • Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors:
    • Probably the biggest one is Akane/June, the Love Interest of Junpei who also happens to be Zero. Her motivations are actually more benevolent than hey initially seemed, and she is not the Big Bad but has been trying to take down a greater evil.
    • It is impossible to describe Santa's motivations or character arc without revealing that he's June's brother and pretty much everything he does in the game is to save her past self. And that reveals that supernatural abilities exist in the world of 999, which just opens up another can of worms.
    • Ace, The Leader of the group, is also the true Big Bad that Akane/Zero was trying to stop; he is Gentaro Hongou, rich Corrupt Corporate Executive of Cradle Pharmaceuticals who created the original Nonary Game that Zero replicated, and his actions drove Akane to do everything to save her past self.
  • Virtue's Last Reward:
    • The kind girl, Luna, is actually a robot made by Zero Sr.
    • Zero Sr. himself is the future self of the protagonist, Sigma Klim.
    • The murdered old woman is Akane herself, who helped set up the game as part of a plan to save the world from a deadly virus and Free The Soul, the Religion of Evil that set it loose.
    • K is either Sigma's clone or Akane, depending on the route, thanks to Schrödinger's Cast.
    • Tenmyouji is a now-elderly Junpei, the protagonist of the previous game.
    • Dio is the true Big Bad as leader of the Myrmidons, a branch of Free The Soul.
  • Team Q in Zero Time Dilemma is the main source of this, with only Eric not qualifying.
    • Mira, Eric's girlfriend, is the Heart Ripper, an infamous Serial Killer who is indirectly responsible for many of the events of the trilogy.
    • The little robot boy is not Q, but Sean, and he was a creation of the current Zero.
    • The biggest one is Zero II himself, who is also Brother, the leader of Free the Soul and the primary villain of the trilogy. He is also the true Q, a previously unseen old man in a wheelchair. And his true identity is Delta Klim, Sigma's time-displaced son. On top of that, literally everything that happened in the series, including everything Akane did to stop him, was all part of his plan to save the world from a Religious Fanatic that ends up destroying it in other timelines.
• Parquet: Hashihime Hinagiku, a seemingly kind woman with knowledge on Brain Machine Interface, is eventually revealed to be the Big Bad. There's also her connection to Tsubasa Kido and Rino Ibaraki and her indirect connection with Ibuki Kanato's creation.
• [redacted] Life: Hana is this, since she is introduced as the new player character once the visual novel "crashes" and the player re-opens the game to find it changed.
• Riddle Joker:
  • The character of Kotori herself is a spoiler, as she's the Astral that went berserk two years prior as well as Principal Ise's daughter and Ayase Mitsukasa's half-sister.
  • Kaori Kakimoto comes off as your typical doctor at Washizu Academy, but turns out to be part of the anti-Astral group that tried to abduct Ayase as well as the one that caused Kotori to go berserk, effectively making her the main villain of the story.
• In Sabbat of the Witch, Touko, the attractive 3rd year student at school, is difficult to talk about as she turns out to be an alp-turned human and had formed a contract with Shuuji's mother sometime before Shuuji was born.
• Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms:
  • There's Ann Jinpou, head of the student council, who in her route is also revealed to be half-soul reaper, that she's a case of Two Beings, One Body thanks to her soul reaper half of Eleonora, that she's over 100 years old, and that she is also Tina's guardian. Ann's route also reveals the identity of the Soul Reaper that saved Yuma's life (see below).
  • Tina's "older" sister Rina is this, as she's the Soul Reaper that gave Yuma new life after his accident, more specifically, her own.
• Seven Days: Jirou is revealed to be not only the person who killed each of the girls, but a depraved Mad Scientist who used them as guinea pigs in his panacea blood experiments as well as Chiyako's grandfather.
• Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair
  • Reiko Shinpuku, the protagonist Raiko's late older sister. While there are various allusions to her throughout the story, she's only introduced in the good ending, when Raiko visits her grave. Raiko mentions that Reiko's death was due to Raiko making the mistake of jumping to conclusions and not listening to her, a tragedy that caused Raiko's shift in personality.
  • There isn't much you can say about Kamen without spoiling the plot, apart from the fact that she's Momoko's best friend and can't stand Raiko for some reason. She's actually in love with Momoko, inadvertently kickstarted the plot by causing Momoko to think that her boyfriend Hiro was cheating on her with Kamen, and had actually met and been helped by Raiko in the past.
  • Momoko also counts. Not only is she supposedly the first victim, but she's also the mastermind behind the murder plot, who killed Hiro, tried to kill Taiko and then hangs herself.
• Sorcery Jokers: Cute girl Ruu and The Dreaded Hood turn out to be the same person.
• Spirit Hunter: NG:
  • Horror author Yakumo Miroku is tied to multiple large spoilers for the game; he isn't the Screaming Author spirit, but rather the one who created it, he was the one responsible for sealing Kakuya until his spiritual power gave out, and in the late-game he's revealed to be the protagonist's father.
  • The Screaming Author herself. The chapter doesn't make it clear until the end that she was one of Yakumo's victims, and not Yakumo himself, which makes it difficult to talk about her in non-spoiler terms.
• Time Tenshi has Michelle, the base commander and operations manager for the Time Window, who also turns out to be connected to Mizuki and Bunni's time-altering scheme.
• Umineko: When They Cry
  • Episode 7 is filled to the brim with these, with Will, Lion, Beatrice Castiglioni, and most importantly Sayo "Yasu" Yasuda (as well as Clair, who serves as a representation of Sayo), who is the true identity of Kanon, Shannon, ''and'' Beatrice as well as the one who kickstarted the Rokkenjima murders in every arc.
  • Episode 8 has the real Tohya Hachijō, who was formerly Battler, but nearly drowned while escaping Rokkenjima and lost his memory and whose existence spoils Battler's ultimate fate.
• In You and Me and Her, Miyuki Sone initially comes off as the queen bee of the school, but if you do Aoi's route after hers, Miyuki turns out to have discovered Aoi's phone, learning the truth about her world, and eventually becomes a Yandere Big Bad who takes control of the visual novel itself.

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