Bitches in Sheep's Clothing in Visual Novels.
- Many characters in the Ace Attorney games are like this, and they're usually the true culprit of the crime.
- Justice for All's Matt Engarde initially seems like a nice guy, if not terribly bright, so he doesn't seem capable of murder. In reality, he's a sociopath who honestly claims that hiring an assassin to kill his rival Juan Corrida doesn't count as murder. He also told Juan that Celeste Inpax, Juan's fiancée, had been in a relationship with Matt before Juan, causing Juan to break up with her and leading to Celeste committing suicide. When he doesn't commit crimes For the Evulz, he does so to protect his own image.
- Dahlia Hawthorne from Trials and Tribulations looks sweet enough to give one cavities, but is, in actual fact, a bitter serial killer who seduces men to make them cover her tracks.
- Dahlia's mother, Morgan, shows that it runs in the family. She initially seems like a good aunt who is devoted to the Fey family, but she also shows a knack for Passive-Aggressive Kombat, not to mention that she masterminded the plot to have Mini Miney murder Dr. Grey in order to frame Maya for the crime, so that Morgan's daughter Pearl can become Master of Kurain Village. When that failed, she was willing to use even someone as vile as Dahlia if it means seizing power.
- Apollo Justice has Alita Tiala, a seemingly loving, devoted fiancée to Wocky, the defendant of Case 2, who is, in fact, marrying him because she and the victim of the case were the only two people who knew that Wocky was going to be dead soon. In fact, she carried out the murder to prevent being ratted out, and blamed it on Wocky.
- Also from Apollo Justice, Kristoph Gavin. He's introduced as a mentor figure for Apollo Justice, only to turn out to be the murderer in the first and fourth cases. Even worse is why he did it. He arranged for Phoenix to use forged evidence, leading to his disbarment, because Zak Gramarye chose Phoenix over Kristoph as his defense attorney. He sent Vera Misham, a young girl who forged the diary page for him, a poisoned stamp to silence her (ending up killing her father in the process), and later killed Zak himself.
- Deliberately invoked in Investigations. Colias Palaeno was designed to be as friendly and sweet as possible to make veteran players suspect him right off the bat. In fact, he's exactly who he presents himself to be, and was just Manny Coachen's pawn. The real bitch in sheep's clothing is the seemingly kindly and humble old ambassador Quercus Alba, who in reality is a dangerous, uncompromising criminal mastermind whose been running an international smuggling ring for at least 10 years.
- Zig-zagged in Investigations 2. At first, it seems like Patricia Roland (Mari Miwa in Japanese) is a warden who genuinely cares about the inmates and their animals like they're her family, then it starts seeming otherwise as suspicion starts pointing towards her for Knightley's murder. Then we learn that she only committed it out of fear because she believed he was one of Dogen's henchmen — Dogen had been threatening her life for years so she'd give him whatever he wanted while he was incarcerated in her prison; she cries that she feared for her and her family's lives because she thought Knightley was sent to hurt her. We then learn that she actively took bribes from Blaise Debeste, was an integral part of the President's assassination twelve years ago, was apparently brutal to Simon Keyes when he was a child living in her orphanage (he was the sole witness to the murder and she needed to know the extent of what he saw — he later says that she interrogated him every day) and was wholly expecting Blaise to cover for her (i.e. by hiding and forging evidence) when Edgeworth found out that she killed Knightley.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice has Queen Ga'ran, who initially appears to be a kind, caring woman who did what she thought was best for her daughter and country. In reality, she is an abusive, murderous sociopath who usurped her sister, had hundreds of innocents executed, and even attempted to have her own family members killed when she thought they stood in her way.
- Tokimi in Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword. Only Yuuto ever seems to realize it. Deep down, she's really not so bad, though.
- The Huggables from Battle Bears act all kind but don't fall for their facade, or they'll hug you so hard you get crushed to death.
- Danganronpa:
- In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, this is Zig-Zagged by the first victim Sayaka Maizono. She successfully managed to be a Manipulative Bitch toward Makoto and used him to set up a murder that she intended on framing him for, but as the Great Detective Kyoko points out later, there is evidence that she was remorseful and conflicted about all of it and her hesitation helped lead to her death. So essentially, she's a Sheep who tried to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and failed.
- Tsumugi Shirogane from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony pretends to be a Nice Girl only for her to be the Big Bad of the game.
- Danganronpa Another:
- Kizuna Tomori acts friendly and cheerful, befitting her talent as the Ultimate Cheerleader, but is truly spiteful and selfish, as shown in the first trial. And then there’s the fact that immediately after the trial was finished, she was able to concoct an elaborate plan to murder Yuki, who is believed to know the mastermind. When Akane refuses to go along with her plan, she then tries to kill her because now she knows too much.
- Kizuna’s killer, Ultimate Sprinter, Ayame Hatano tries to pull this act, so that the other students will feel less guilty about executing her, but Mikako sees right through it, seeing that she had deliberately injured herself, via cutting her leg on a wire, meaning that even if she had escaped (and had everyone else executed in the process) she would most likely never be able to run again. In reality, this trope is subverted for her as not only, was her calm yet awkward and shy personality real, but she had killed Kizuna so that Akane (who had stabbed her earlier, during Kizuna’s murder attempt) wouldn’t become the blackened instead.
- Super Danganronpa Another 2:
- All members of the organisation Void put up an act of being regular high school students at first, but are all actually deranged murders. It’s downplayed with Mikado Sannoji (who’s exposed as the game’s mastermind in the prologue and puts up a Faux Affably Evil facade afterwards that nobody is fooled by) and Hajime Makunouchi (who is shown in the Void Theater segments (taking place after he gets executed) to have regretted his actions and Took a Level in Kindness) while the other two members who got executed, Emma Magorobi and Nikei Yomiuri, are shown to have good sides deep down, and the one who survived, Iroha Nijiue, drops the facade entirely after being exposed. They are all still sympathetic in spite of this (Mikado less so), due to having horrible lives before joining Void.
- A much worse example is Kanade Otonokoji, the Ultimate Guitarist and twin sister of Hibiki Otonokoji, the Ultimate Vocalist. Kanade at first appears to be a shy and weak-willed girl who constantly gets pushed around and yelled at by her more assertive (and older by two minutes) sister. However, during the investigation sequences, she becomes blunter, arrogant, condescending, and more calm and intelligent than usual, helping Sora with the case. Despite that, she’s still implied to be a good person. And then Chapter 3 happens, and it turns out she’s actually a lot worse. Not only is she the Chapter’s Blackened, but she’s also revealed to be a sociopathic Serial Killer who has killed anyone who gets close to Hibiki. She’s murdered their pet dog, Hibiki’s best friend, their old homeroom teacher and Hibiki’s first crush, their parents, their band’s recording engineer, make-up artist and manager, and probably many more, considering an estimated number of her victims is 60. Not just that, but she’s also made it so that whenever Hibiki gets too stressed, she goes into a blank state when she can only obey Kanade’s commands, and even manipulated her into killing Setsuka Chiebukuro, her surrogate Cool Big Sis. Oh, and she also believes herself to be a perfect being who’s above everyone else. She’s so utterly monstrous and depraved that even Mikado is disgusted by her true nature.
- Borderline example: Rin Tohsaka from Fate/stay night, who combines this with Jerk with a Heart of Gold. She's not a bad person, but she's Cool, Dark, and Snarky, rather than the "perfect honour student" image she shows to the rest of the school. The only ones in on her real personality (barring Shirou, who's a bit traumatised when he finds out) are her rival Ayako, who has a similar facade going on, and Issei, who served with her on the student council in middle school and got to see her true, pragmatically ruthless nature. Sakura seems to have at least some idea too, because she's her sister. She has rather mixed feelings, however, since she worries about what Rin might do to Shirou in the war, but at the same time, clearly still loves Rin, and desperately wants to be acknowledged by her. How much of this you see depends on the route. In Fate, you see some of her kindness amongst her glorious snarkiness. In Unlimited Blade Works, her kindness is fully displayed. In Heaven's Feel, she seems to drop the 'heart of gold' entirely and just becomes a bitch — especially towards her sister, Sakura — until the end of the final fight, where she demonstrates that her bitchiness had really been a facade all along, as an attempt to persuade herself that she could, after all, kill Sakura if she had to. The True End of the Heaven's Feel route implies that she has dropped the "bitch" part entirely, at least as far as Sakura and Shirou are concerned.
- fault - milestone one has two. Years after the stabbing incident, the original Rune became well behaved, on the surface. However, she still continued to do violent acts, such as mutilating small animals, in secret. The end of the Visual Novel suggests that Selphine is one too, as she suddenly pulls a 180 from her typical, sweet self and demands that Ritona should not outright kill Melona right on the spot, as she wants to question Melona, but Ritona can tear Melona apart if she wants.
- Grisaia Series:
- Irisu Kiyoka is polite, but little more. Her speech contains veiled threats and a rather penetrating attitude. With a smile, she admits that she was hoping protagonist Yuuji would accept the souvenir she offered and get halfway home before realizing it was nothing but a veiled insult.
- The waitress in The Eden of Grisaia that married Robbie and waits on Yumiko is rude, passive-aggressive, and pushy despite her superficial politeness. As a CIA agent that's usually much more stoic, she's probably pissed at the cover job she has to take.
- Miyo Takano in Higurashi: When They Cry seems like a kind and supportive nurse, but turns out to be a manipulative villain who caused all the bad events in Hinamizawa.
- In Kokoro Baka Monogatari, Mokuyoubi seems friendly… for a bit. They're quickly shown to be a bully, a manipulator, and potentially even a mass-murderer.
- Last Window has Dylan Fitchar who may come off as a bit of a Nosy Neighbor, but is generally normal. In actuality, he's The Mole for Nile.
- Jeff from Nicole is a mild example: due to not wanting to be a burden on his grandparents after his mother abandoned him with them, he has created his persona based on what the majority of the population wants to see, which is an all-around nice guy who excels at what he does and is helpful and friendly. In truth, he's a bit off his rocker, distant, has almost no empathy for others, and generally considers everyone around him complete idiots, but he's not actively malicious. Like Chiaki (listed below), he's not presented as irredeemable, and he's a potential Love Interest. That being said, he becomes a far less mild and more malicious version when you find out that he's behind the recent kidnapping of three women — even then, he's still redeemable, but only if he's Nicole's chosen Love Interest. Otherwise, he remains a Smug Snake who views others as subhuman.
- Chiaki in Our Two Bedroom Story is described as "gentlemanly" and having a "sweet face," and he exerts himself to come across as pleasant and cheerful to his co-workers. However, as the protagonist soon discovers, his true self is something less pleasant - though not irredeemably so, given that he's one of the possible love interests of the game.
- Spirit Hunter: NG:
- Seiji is a mild-mannered young man with a pretty face and soft voice. However, he's also the heir to the Yakuza who takes great pleasure from tormenting and blackmailing others.Ban: Stop pretending like you're innocent. I know who you are under that sheep disguise.
- Yasuko seems like a loving, maternal woman when the Urashima Woman first meets her. This is just because Yasuko sees her as a surrogate for Yasuko's child, however, and she reveals her true cruelty after the Urashima Woman actually gives birth.
- Seiji is a mild-mannered young man with a pretty face and soft voice. However, he's also the heir to the Yakuza who takes great pleasure from tormenting and blackmailing others.
- Fal from Symphonic Rain who only acts nice to the protagonist in order to take advantage of his musical talents.
