Internal Reveal / Anime & Manga

• In Aikatsu!, it's known from early on that Ichigo's mother was one half of the legendary idol duo Masquerade. Ichigo herself (and all other young idols) doesn't learn of this until episode 47.
• In the Asteroid in Love manga, Ao, as well as the readers, already learn in Chapter 23 that Ao is going to move away from the town due to her father's job transfer, but it is 4 chapters later, or about two months in in-universe time, when she tells the rest of the cast about this. In the anime, however, this internal reveal is converted to The Reveal by removing the scene in which Ao is told the news and a few parts in which she thinks about it
• In Basara, Sasara and Shuri fall in love with each other. She is known by the public as Tatara, her deceased twinbrother, and vows to get revenge on the Red King for murdering her twin. Shuri is the Red King in question and vows to stop the rebellion led by Tatara. Since Sasara is using her real identity as a woman as a Secret Identity, neither of them is aware that they are the person the other wants to kill. It takes a very long time for them to eventually find this out.
• Bleach:
  • Ichigo's father is a bumbling idiot who pervs over his daughters and his deceased mother was someone he remembers as gentle and kind. Kon and the audience finds out that Isshin is a Shinigami when Aizen's proto-Arrancar almost kill Kon. However, it's hundreds of chapters later when Ichigo learns the truth about Isshin, and that's only because Isshin intervenes in Ichigo's fight with Aizen to prevent Aizen revealing the truth about Ichigo's mother, who was a Quincy. Ichigo doesn't have much time to stay shocked at Isshin's reveal given that he's in the middle of a fight with Aizen and Gin, so it takes almost another hundred chapters before Isshin's back story reveals he's the former 10th Division Captain who went AWOL twenty years before the story began. The Gotei 13, especially his successors, Hitsugaya and Rangiku, still haven't found out who Ichigo's father is.
  • The Everything but the Rain arc, which reveals Isshin's back story (and which is, by association, a partial reveal of Ryuuken's back story), concludes with the reveal to the audience that Uryuu didn't go with Ichigo to Hueco Mundo because he has instead joined the Vandenreich. Several chapters later, the rest of the Vandenreich find out about their new recruit, which the audience knew about before they were told. They're not impressed as he's an unknown man who has immediately jumped over Haschwalth's head to become Yhwach's successor. It's many more chapters before Ichigo and his friends all learn that Uryuu has joined the Vandenreich, and they only find out when Uryuu chooses to intervene between Yhwach and Ichigo to both reveal his current allegiance and to attempt to protect Ichigo's life without appearing to be disloyal to Yhwach.
  • During the final battle, no one is aware of Isshin and Ryuuken's arrival in the Royal Realm except for the audience. They eventually reveal themselves to Uryuu so that Ryuuken can give Uryuu a special arrow created from the soul silver that Yhwach used to kill Uryuu's mother. Ryuuken collected the silver to forge an arrow that can briefly stop Yhwach's power. Although initially surprised to see his father in the Royal Realm, Uryuu doesn't waste much time on either disbelief or needless questions — he's well aware that Ichigo's running out of time against Yhwach.
• Code Geass:
  • Much of the drama (and even some of the comedy) throughout the series stems from Lelouch trying to conceal his identity as the terrorist leader Zero — and as the exiled eleventh prince of the empire — from both his friends and his enemies, while of course the audience knows from the very beginning. The situation is made more complex by his Geass power, which allows him to erase memories, but which only works once on any given person. The major, heartbreaking Internal Reveal occurs in the final minutes of the first season finale.
  • Due to a Time Skip and some amnesia induced by The Emperor's Geass, the situation is mostly reset for the second season, with many of the characters who were previously aware of Lelouch's identity either once again oblivious or at least unsure of whether Lelouch is the "new" Zero.
• Death Parade: The dark-haired woman finds out that she is a human who has died a couple episodes after it’s revealed to the audience.
• Digimon Tamers: Takato eventually shows Guilmon to his entire class. What follows is an episode of middle schoolers playing with a little red dinosaur. This case is unique in that there was no real reason for doing so until later when Takato wanted to sneak Guilmon on the school camping trip.
• Goku spent the entirety of the original Dragon Ball in the dark about what happened to his grandfather Son Gohan — namely, that he squashed the poor guy when in his giant ape Oozaru form on the full moon, which Bulma, Yamcha, and the crew figured out pretty quickly after Goku transformed for the first time in the manga. He finally twigs to it during the Saiyan saga of Dragon Ball Z when his enemy Vegeta, a member of the Saiyan race like he is, reveals his ability to transform into a giant ape as well, as well as displaying considerably more control over it than Goku was ever able to maintain.
• Shu explains about Voids (and the fact he's a member of Funeral Parlor) to a few of his classmates halfway through Guilty Crown.
• In Fairy Tail, toward the end of the Tartaros arc, Zeref reveals that E.N.D., the strongest demon he created, is actually Etherious Natsu Dragneel, and in a flashback an arc later, also reveals that Natsu is his younger brother. In the arc after that, Natsu learns about his identity as E.N.D. and relationship to Zeref during his fight with Zeref, and Gray, after defeating Invel, who'd intended to manipulate him into killing E.N.D., learns that E.N.D., whom he'd sworn to destroy, is actually Natsu.
• Food Wars!: For about the first half of the story, only a few people are aware of Soma's relationship to Joichiro, largely due to Soma using his maternal surname while the world knows Joichiro by his original surname Saiba. This is played up for Dramatic Irony given that Erina admires Joichiro but hates Soma, unaware of their relationship until Chapter 130, where she walks in on Soma right when he's telling her father Azami Nakiri that Joichiro is his dad.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • The audience is well aware that Havoc's girlfriend is actually an evil quasi-immortal being who's only using him to feel out what the good guys know about the bad guys' plan. The fallout of the reveal itself is horrific, but with the twist that emotionally, Havoc wasn't all that upset, and not being an idiot, he hadn't told his girlfriend anything that was sensitive information. What really upset him was her stabbing him through the spine and paralysing him.
  • Bradley's true nature as Wrath and Envy being Hughes' true killer is revealed to the audience long before any of the main characters finds out.
• In Goodbye, My Rose Garden, Hanako Kujou, a Japanese schoolteacher, travels to England in hopes of meeting her favorite author, Victor Franks. She gets a job as a maid for Alice Douglas, a young noblewoman who agrees to introduce Hanako to Victor if Hanako agrees to kill Alice. Midway through the story, it is revealed in passing that Victor's true identity is Alice herself, but the revelation is not made to Hanako until the end of the second volume out of three.
• In The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All, it is established at the beginning that the record store clerk Aya likes is actually her female classmate Mitsuki. Aya, however, doesn't find out until Chapter 18, when she notices that Mitsuki left her phone on her desk and notices that the playlist is the same one she sent to the record store clerk.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's:
  • While the audience knew from the start that the master of the season's villains was the ill girl who was the friend of Nanoha's friend, the Main Characters and antagonists didn't know this. Much of the tension comes from seeing just how soon before both sides realize just how close they actually were.
  • The eponymous 9-year-old heroine finally confesses to her parents that over the past half a year, she has been working part-time as a Child Soldier for Human Aliens on a job that could have very well left her either crippled for life or dead. They take it surprisingly well (but then again, given her dad's background, they must have been very proud of her).
• Mash's status as Un-Sorcerer is known in Mashle: Magic and Muscles from the start and he doesn't really hide it, however his friends don't learn he was born without magic until chapter 38.
• The end of Mob Psycho 100 has Reigen finally admitting to Mob that he's been a Phony Psychic from the moment they met.
• My Hero Academia: All Might is a superhero who is suffering from a crippling injury which in his normal form, makes him really weak. He can temporarily use a muscular form, and keeps his real form a secret so that people can put their faith in him as the symbol of peace. During his fight with his archnemesis All for One, the hero eventually fails to keep up this muscular body, exposing his weak self to the public.
• Nagasarete Airantou: After a number of silhouette outlines and hints for the reader's benefit, the only person who didn't know the identity of the Leader of the West before the Scavenger Hunt Arc was Ikuto.
• Naruto :
  • It was long suspected and eventually revealed that Naruto's father was the Fourth Hokage. Naruto himself didn't discover it until a Journey to the Center of the Mind nearly 80 chapters after it was revealed to the audience in a conversation between Tsunade and Jiraiya.
  • In The Last: Naruto the Movie, Naruto is surprised to find out that Hinata is in love with him, even though all of their friends and a good portion of the general public have known about it for years, especially after Hinata confessed to him during the Invasion of Pain arc two years ago — and that's In-Universe. If one were to go by real time, it'd be at least six years ago. Slightly justified when Sakura theorizes that Naruto did remember that Hinata said that; he just didn't realize that the type of love Hinata meant is not the same as his love for ramen.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • The audience knows all along that the boy Ako falls in love with is really Negi magically aged up, but she doesn't find out until over 100 chapters later.
  • Also, the audience knew that the Asuna that's with Ala Alba in later chapters is an impostor long before Rakan revealed it to Negi and Chisame during his Obi-Wan Moment.
• One Piece:
  • When the Straw Hats were brought to the Sabaody Islands, they were in search of a man who could prep their ship for Fishman Island. Then the readers were told that this person was the Pirate King's Number Two, which made fans eagerly await his inevitable meeting with Luffy.
  • After Luffy's bounty goes up from 30 to 100 million Berries, and Zoro gets his first bounty of 60 million Berries, no one catches on for almost the entire Jaya arc, not even the Straw Hats themselves. Seeing Luffy's new bounty prompts an Oh, Crap! reaction from one member of Bellamy's crew, and Luffy only learns about his new bounty when Blackbeard's pursuing him to the Knock-Up Stream.
  • On Amazon Lilly, Luffy gets the first news that his brother has been sentenced to death. He had realized that Ace was in trouble after seeing the Vivre card burning, but didn't realize how bad it was until then, although the execution had been announced days earlier.
• "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman'': Episode 71 ends with Leader X intervening to save Berg Katse after the latter is nearly unmasked by the Science Ninja Team. Though the audience was well aware of X's existence since the first episode, the heroes had long believed Berg Katse to be the leader of Galactor.
• Superior is built on the Dramatic Irony of Sheila trying to keep her identity as the demon queen a secret from Exa, because she knows that all hell with break loose when he finds out. He finally learns the truth in the second to last volume of Superior Cross, and the results are not pretty.
• Sword Art Online: In the Fairy Dance arc, Kirito accompanies a Sylph named Leafa on his journey to the World Tree, with each of them unaware of the other's real life identity- Kirito is Kazuto Kirigaya, and Leafa is Kirito's cousin/adoptive sister Suguha. After Kirito's first failed attempt to invade the World Tree, he insists that he has to go there, because Asuna is waiting there, still trapped in a virtual world. Leafa realizes that the Asuna Kirito is trying to rescue is the same girl as the comatose Asuna whom Kazuto brouht her to visit, and realizes that Kirito is Kazuto, swiftly followed by Kazuto realizing that Leafa is Suguha. Since Leafa fell in love with Kirito as a Replacement Goldfish for Kazuto, she does not take this well.
• Tales of Wedding Rings: In chapter 36, Elder Peridot tells the party that she was one of the five princesses who married the original Ring King centuries ago. This revelation comes as a big surprise to the protagonists, but it was first disclosed to the reader twenty-six chapters earlier. The rest of what she has to say is new to both the reader and the characters, however.
• At the start of Yuri is My Job!, Hime, who just started high school, accidentally causes Mai, the manager of a salon, to injure her arm, and agrees to help out until Mai's arm heals. In Chapter 25, which takes place in the summer, a flashback to the end of April reveals that Mai had recovered enough to take off her cast, but continued wearing it to make Hime think she was still injured, something Sumika and Mitsuki had also known about but keep secret, since Mitsuki wants Hime to stick around to learn how to do her job well. In Chapter 31, they tell Hime the truth, which, combined with Mitsuki's Love Confession, results in Hime deciding to stop working at Liebe.

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