Green-Eyed Epiphanies in Anime and Manga.
By Creator:
- Rumiko Takahashi is the Queen of this trope:
- Ranma ½: Multiple times, both ways, between Ranma and Akane, Ranma and Ukyo, and Ranma and Shampoo. Seen mainly in the Ranma-Akane interaction, since they only show how much they care for each other when one of them is endangered, and they always have an excuse to cover up their very apparent jealousy.
- Inuyasha: Happens in both directions between Inuyasha and Kagome, with Koga as Kagome's Romantic False Lead and Kikyo as Inuyasha's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend back from the dead, and includes the added mind-screw element that Kagome and Kikyo are technically the same person.
By Title:
- In Accel World, Kuroyukihime meets Haruyuki's Childhood Friend Chiyuri on bad terms, and at the time, Kuroyukihime claims that it's because she thinks Chiyuri is Cyan Pile, a Burst Linker who's trying to eliminate her for a point bounty. Kuroyukihime later admits that she's jealous of Chiyuri and that because she was jealous, she realized her feelings for Haruyuki.
- In the anime version of Angelic Layer, Tamayo treats Kotaro only as a close friend until he develops obvious feelings for protagonist Misaki.
- In A Cruel God Reigns, Jeremy begins to realize he loves Ian just as Nadia is fiercely trying to get Ian back.
- Beastars has Legosi having finally decided he wasn't in fact in love with Haru at all, spot her clandestinely meeting with her boyfriend and immediately realizing that he is in fact love with her.
- Berserk does this with Griffith. He gives Guts and Casca a Kubrick Stare when he sees them together following their rescue of him. Not to mention the heavily implied hint that he feels this way for both of them.
- FAKE: While JJ's affection for Dee does stir pangs of jealousy for Ryo, it's not until Diana kisses Dee that this jealousy reaches its peak, causing Ryo to realize that despite his denial over his attraction to Dee, he can't stand the thought of anyone else kissing him. This conversation with Dee almost reaches a Relationship Upgrade until they're interrupted. Again.
- Implied in Fairy Tail. During the Grand Magic Games arc, Lyon, Gray's rival and fellow disciple of Ur, makes advances on Juvia, who's madly in love with Gray, even if he doesn't notice. Around this time, Gray gradually starts to notice Juvia's feelings for him.
- Horimiya: Despite their great chemistry and cordial relationship, Hori at first repeatedly denies that anything romantic is happening between herself and Miyamura. She also denies it when Ayasaki asks about their relationship, but only an instant later, when Ayasaki teases her about "taking Miyamura" for herself, Hori becomes aggressively angry. She immediately declares that she will never let anyone else have Miyamura and repeatedly shouts "He's mine!". Afterwards, she never again denies her feelings for him.
- I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying has a variation in the backstory. When Hajime and Kaoru had been working at the same company for a while, Hajime asked out a co-worker and got turned down, and he took it pretty hard. Seeing him that upset made Kaoru upset, and she realized she was jealous of Hajime's strong feelings toward the co-worker even though they didn't get together. This forced Kaoru to admit her feelings for him, leading to the unlikely relationship that forms the basis of the series.
- In Itazura Na Kiss Naoki Irie finally comes to terms with his true feelings for Kotoko Aihara after he hears that her longtime friend Kinnosuke proposed to her. He confronts her and tells her that he doesn't want her loving anyone else. The pair share their first honest kiss and get their Relationship Upgrade. It only gets better from there.
- Fujiwara invokes this on Kashiwagi in chapter 16 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. She asks for Kashiwagi to imagine her boyfriend with another girl and if she feels bad or annoyed then that means she loves him. The hilarious part is that Kaguya also imagined Shirogane with Fujiwara and was furious. She didn't take the implication that it meant she cared for Shirogane well.
- Happens again later down the line with Iino. Unlike Kaguya and Kashiwagi's situation, this is a more straight-forward example: Whenever she sees how well Ishigami is doing wth Tsubame, she mentally breaks, usually either looking dead inside or tearing up from bottling up her feelings.
- Kaitou Saint Tail has Meimi finally dropping the Tsundere act for real and admitting outright to herself that she's fallen in love with Asuka Jr. when Takamiya gets very close to stealing away her baseball game "date" (part of an agreement they'd made so that Meimi could get tutoring from him in exchange) from her. A more Phantom Thief genre-flavored one happens when Asuka Jr. realizes that the increasing possibility of Saint Tail actually being Meimi has made his fixation with catching Saint Tail go from simple competitiveness to an absolute refusal to let anyone else have her whatsoever.
- Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss is a regular ass to the heroine Nanami 95% of the time but should another man so much as even talk to her, watch out.
- Tomari in Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl admits her feelings for Hazumu only after she catches her kissing another girl, Yasuna.
- Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Miu constantly denies that she has any interest until Kensei Ma's daughter Renka shows interest. However, this doesn't trigger an epiphany. She's actually confused why it makes her so upset.
- Love Hina appears to run on this and equal doses of Not What It Looks Like and Comedic Sociopathy resulting in Keitaro's Made of Iron status. Both Naru and Keitaro love calling out each other's faults, and it's rare when Keitaro doesn't get the shit beat out of him for something he can't help or wasn't his fault in the first place, but as soon as someone else starts showing some kind of affection towards Keitaro, count on Naru to start some shit to break up the cozy atmosphere.
- In the Lovely★Complex manga and anime, Otani has never been able to see Risa as anything other than a friend...until she's suddenly swooning over Maity-sensei.Otani: You're always saying "Maity this, Maity that"!! That's why I'm so annoyed!!
Riza: ...Why should you be annoyed?
Otani: How should I know? Annoying things will, of course, annoy me!! Don't ever mention his name again!! - My First Girlfriend Is a Gal: Yui treated everyone as her personal servants, but especially liked seeing Junichi as her faithful dog, whom she could tame to do anything she wanted. Paying slightly less attention to her, after he began a relationship with Yukana, prompts her to try and seduce him solely to be the center of his attention again. When all of her attempts fail, she quickly begins to realize that having other women around Junichi in general makes her angry, until she finally figures out that she wants to be with him.
- In Nana, Shoji was this; even though he was cheating on her with his co-worker and classmate Sachiko and broke up with Hachi to be with her, he gets jealous when he hears that Hachi has found a new boyfriend who was pleasing her in ways that he didn't because he didn't think them important. Although he denied his feelings to friends again when he heard that Hachi was engaged, he finally admits to Sachiko that he regrets hurting her and that he became "far-sighted" when he finally got Hachi as his girlfriend.
- Naruto: In the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie, Naruto realizes he's in love with Hinata because he noticed that Toneri took an obsessive interest in her. Screenwriter Maruo Kyozuka confirmed this in the movie's program guide, where he stated that, with Kishimoto's direct and complete editorial supervision, he deliberately wrote Toneri to be so smug and good-looking that Naruto's romantic feelings "flare up" whenever Toneri tries to take Hinata away from him.
- In One Piece Charlotte Pudding initially thought Sanji was pathetic and was all gung-ho to kill him until he complimented her Third Eye which made have a Villainous BSoD and no longer willing to kill him. But Pudding’s feelings only become truly apparent when she witnesses Nami literally fall into Sanji’s arms and smile at each other, as judging by Pudding’s expression she isn’t happy about it. The anime adds even more as despite insulting Sanji, Pudding has a jealous breakdown seeing her sister Chiffon feed Sanji her cooking and hearing him say he likes it.
- In The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata seems to have a very subtle one in episode 3 after seeing Jin and Mashiro together at the mall.
- In Tokyo Ghoul Re, Tooru Mutsuki seeing Sasaki with Touka together in the café made Mutsuki realize that he loves Sasaki like a woman loves a man.
- In Wedding Peach, Momoko spends earlier episodes feeling annoyed by Yousuke's habit of teasing her. She finally comes to realize her feelings when the villainess, Potamos, hits on Yousuke. Despite Momoko initially denied her feelings, she can't help but feeling jealous everytime she sees Potamos chases after him.
- In Your Lie in April, Tsubaki doesn't seem to realize she likes Kousei until she starts to become jealous of Kousei hanging out with Kaori. She thinks of him as her younger brother up until then.
- In Yuri is My Job!, Sumika thinks that her feelings for her kohai Kanoko are those of someone toward a "little sister," in large part because she views romantic love as selfish. However, this starts to change when she realizes that Kanoko's most genuine smiles are directed at Hime, Kanoko's best friend and the object of her unrequited love. At that point, Sumika starts to realize that she doesn't solely discourage Kanoko's fixation on Hime out of a belief that it's unhealthy, but because she loves Kanoko.
