Basic Trope: A (usually) Emotionless Girl likes a guy, but for one reason or another, hides her feelings under a cold exterior.
- Straight: Keiko is rather quiet and cold. Her schoolwork is more important to her than love, but then she notices Sam...
- Exaggerated: Keiko is emotionally distant with everyone, including her family, friends, and puppy. However, at first sight of Sam, turns into a gooey mess of affection.
- Downplayed: Keiko is a bit more cooler than others.
- Justified:
- Keiko transferred to a new school and feels like she's Surrounded by Idiots. Sam is a Snark Knight and helps her feel less lonely.
- Keiko has been burned badly by someone she trusted and is slow to trust. Sam manages to gain her trust, and she warms up to him as a result.
- Keiko has Asperger's Syndrome. She has natural difficulty expressing emotions but that doesn't stop her from loving those close to her.
- Inverted:
- Sam is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and causes the usually cheerful Keiko to give him the cold shoulder.
- Keiko is normally a loving person until she notices Sam and suddenly becomes emotionless when he's around her.
- Keiko is a Stepford Smiler.
- Keiko is this trope but Sam is both cold on the outside and the inside, so a reversal of this trope happens. Keiko warms up to Sam, and Sam was always indifferent of her and becomes mildly annoyed when she begins showing affection, and so trope switches to "defrosting ice king".
- Subverted: Sam seems to be making Keiko warm up a little bit, but she's still aloof, and a relationship never happens.
- Double Subverted: ...until the summer.
- Parodied: Sam turns Keiko into a Clingy Jealous Girl over the weekend.
- Zig Zagged: Keiko doesn't like Sam. Later, however, she seems to develop feelings for him, but then it turns out that she was just using him for her own ends. And then it turns out that even though it looks like that was what happened, she really did like him. And then it turns out that he was trying to manipulate her. And then it turns out that neither of them have actual feelings for each other. Until suddenly they do.
- Averted: Keiko intimidates Sam and he never approaches her. She never notices.
- Enforced: Wanting to capitalise on the appeal of "cold outside, warm inside" female characters, the producers pressured the writers to give Emotionless Girl Keiko a Love Interest, believing that the audience would like her more.
- Lampshaded: "That girl doesn't seem to like anyone, does she?" "Well, I think she likes Sam. You see that sort of thing all the time in movies."
- Invoked: Sam notices that, while Keiko is cold, he could try to warm her up to the idea of a Love Interest, and decides to go about winning her that way.
- Exploited: Sam just got out of a relationship with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, finding her to be way too chaotic and crazy. Keiko seems like a good way to start over with someone less likely to drag him on some insane adventure.
- Defied: Keiko meanwhile notices Sam's efforts and decides to ignore him.
- Discussed: "Unlike what you see in movies, Sam, I am not interested. Please stop hugging me."
- Conversed: "Oh, I see what's happening here. She's going to act all cold like she's not interested, but she is, and they live Happily Ever After."
- Deconstructed:
- A rare optimistic deconstruction: Keiko has had trouble with getting close to people her whole life. Even if Sam gets on her nerves sometimes, she feels more comfortable with him than anyone else.
- Reconstructed: Keiko has something of a misanthropic streak. Sam helps her realize that not all humans are bastards.
- Played For Laughs: Keiko is The Comically Serious in Sam's zany schemes.
- Played For Drama: Keiko was going through depression, but Sam helps her realize she has much to live for and people who love her.
- Played For Horror Keiko's cold demeanor rubs off on Sam before she can warm up to him, her Broken Bird Humans Are Bastards mentality is embraced by Sam who becomes hateful of humanity and all life on Earth. He then wants to wipe out all life on Earth and make it uninhabitable, which horrifies Keiko, causing her to blame herself for being the cause of Sam's misanthropy. She tries desperately to get Sam to avoid crossing the Moral Event Horizon and fails, then all that's left to salvage is the prospect of saving Sam from becoming a Complete Monster, which also fails, and he has to be killed, giving Keiko PTSD and causing her to go from a Broken Bird to a "shattered into a million pieces" bird. She then cuts herself off from all humanity out of fear of this happening again. She later learns that Sam was very mentally unstable, but she doesn't care, she still blames herself fully.
Go ahead and go back to Kuudere. I don't care. Really...I don't. (sigh)
