Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Last week, I took a look at some of the best trap characters in anime. This week we’re switching gears and taking a look at the best reverse trap characters. For those of you who don’t know what that is a reverse trap character holds the same concept as a trap character. Basically, it’s a character who looks like a male but an actuality is a female. Trap characters were meant to fool males and reverse trap characters were meant to fool females. While traps characters are becoming more common in today’s anime, reverse trap characters are a rarity and finding them is harder than finding a Cloud amiibo. You know it’s out there, but you can’t find it. In honor of these characters I’m here to name the top 11 reverse trap characters. Why top 11? Because just like someone else I too like to go one step beyond. Get ready to have your fantasies broken ladies. These are the top 11 reverse trap characters.
#11. Haruka Tenou aka Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon
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We’ll start off with an easy one and you can’t get much easier than Haruka from Sailor Moon the first reverse trap character I saw in anime. To be fair Haruka has worn both male and female clothing but she was at her best when she wore male clothing. Her short hair, masculine voice, and sharp look made her capture the hearts of females everywhere. All of this, plus her smooth talk and charming personality, it was easy to forget that the person who made girls drop Tuxedo Mask was a woman all along.
#10. Haruhi from Ouran High Host Club
http://www.zerochan.net/1557062
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Another easy one that a lot of people put high on their list. While it’s true Haruhi has you fooled into believing that she’s a male at first, as the episode progresses you slowly start to piece together that Haruhi is a girl and a rather cute one at that. Despite this however there’s no denying that Haruhi did look like a male and fooled the girls of Ouran into believing it as well as many boys. Haruhi didn’t really care about her appearance or the fact that people mistook her for a male. If anything she actually embraced her reverse trap persona while still remaining herself and capturing the hearts of everyone who watched her. What stops her from being put higher on the list is the fact that we know she’s a trap character while the other characters were a bit cleverer with their traps.
#9. Subaru from Mayo Chiki
http://www.zerochan.net/671736
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Now I know what you’re thinking, didn’t I say she was an obvious trap in my review? Yes, I did and stand by it but apparently a few of you have sent me emails saying that you honestly were fooled by her and thought she was a guy. Whether or not you guys are fooling with me, I decided to include her onto the list to make you happy. Due to family circumstances Subaru dresses up as a male in order to serve as a butler to her lady. I will give her credit and say she does a good job at keeping her secret from everyone. She never interacted with her classmates, always went to restrooms that were the least crowded, and always faked sickness on physical day. While she may have been an obvious trap to me you have to give her credit for going to great lengths to keep her secret a secret just to be beside and serve the person that was the most precious to her.
#8. Eve Boland from Spice and Wolf
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Here’s another character that a lot of people thought was a guy but I figured was a female right away. However, with this one I can understand why they thought she was a guy. Whenever we saw Eve she was usually in a cloak combined that with her short hair and personality and it’s easy to see why you could mistake her for a pretty boy and in a time period where women weren’t that well respected in trade ventures it’s understandable why she would choose to look this way. Her role may have been short in the anime but she left quite the impact on the audience.
#7. Nagi from Nyan Koi
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One of the most bizarre anime characters I have ever seen in my life, and that’s saying something. Nagi was a character who you really did believe was a guy. She was tall, flat-chested, wore guy clothing, and was even hinted to have a crush on Mizuho. But once her episode came around we were all shocked to find out that Nagi all this time was just an eccentric girl from the yakuza family who had this strange hobby of liking and admiring the beauty of things she desired. She’s a very bizarre trap but an entertaining one nonetheless.
#6. Otto from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
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This character makes the list because of her convincing boyish looks. She looks like a boy and giving her the name of one only convinces you that she’s a boy all the way. Another factor is that she was the silent type. She rarely talks and doesn’t change her expression all that much. She looked like a silent child soldier who had closed off her emotions in order to not feel pain again. The way she dressed also resembled that of a boy. Couldn’t we have given her a skirt, leggings, spats, or something? I don’t know, just something to convince me that she was a girl.
#5. Daichi Kaoru from Ladies vs Butlers
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Not one of the best animes and definitely an easy one to forget about but Daichi was in fact a girl forced to attend high school under the disguise of a male. From the beginning it was obvious that Daichi was a female pretending to be a guy. She always covered himself, kept his distance from the other guys, and always bathed alone instead of with the group. Even when her cover gets blown the MC still can’t piece together that his roommate all this time is a girl because of her flat chest and his clueless mind. A forgetful series but a series that had a good reverse trap character they never utilized.
#4. Yuu Kashima from Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun
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Sort of like a combination of Haruka and Nagi, Yuu displayed the qualities that all the girls look for in guys. She was tall, kind, charming, smooth talker, and had a prince-like personality that just drew you to her. Even though the girls in the anime are fully aware that Yuu is a girl they still can’t help but fall for her. She’s just too good and has all the qualities the girls want in a guy.
#3. Makoto from the Idolm@ster
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Often considered to be the best idol in the series, Makoto has been given the nickname the Prince Idol. Unlike the other characters on this list Makoto was raised by her father like a boy. She never got a chance to experience the childhood of a girl so as you can imagine she comes across as strange, understandably so. Desperate to be seen as a female and live out her dream of wearing cute and frilly clothing, Makoto became an idol only to get her dreams squashed by the agency who keeps giving her jobs where she has to dress as a man and is marketed as a princely idol for all the girls to love. It also doesn’t help that she thrusts herself into the princely role whenever it pops up. She once fought off guards of a royal prince single-handedly and even came to the rescue of a couple of girls being harassed by some thugs at an amusement park. Despite her male appearance, Makoto is a girl through in through. She likes reading shoujo manga, collecting stuff animals, afraid of mice and ghost stories, and dreams of one day meeting her prince. While she may not like her prince role she doesn’t hate it, and embraces it whole heartedly for her fans and being their prince. And that’s something you’ve got to respect.
#2. Kino from Kino’s Journey
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Throughout a majority of the anime we’re never told what Kino’s true gender is. All we have to go on is her appearance and mannerism which based of you come to the conclusion that Kino is a boy. A very stoic boy who may or may not be imagining a talking motorcycle. But our worlds get turned upside down when we find out that Kino is actually a girl. We see a flashback episode and everything which shows how she met Hermes, what got her into traveling, and where she comes from. Good God was my mind blown when I first saw this episode. I felt like Luke discovering that Darth Vader was his father. I couldn’t believe it. Everything about her just screams boy. Kino gets put high on list because despite knowing that she’s a reverse trap you still find it hard to believe she’s girl and ever harder to accept it.
And the number one reverse trap character is. . .
#1. Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 the Animation
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Whether it be in the games or in the anime Naoto is definitely the pinnacle of what it means to be a reverse trap. She contains all the qualities of every girl on this list but unlike the other girls on this who have their appearance due to genes or the way they were raised, they still have girly qualities that help you identify them as girls deep down and if they wanted to could change up their looks to appear more like a female. Naoto on the other hand doesn’t have a girly bone in her body and chooses to be a reverse trap unlike the other girls on this list. While other girls were reading romantic novels, Naoto was reading the latest mystery novel. While other girls played with dolls, Naoto was tinkering with machines. While other girls wanted to be actresses, models, or idols when they grew up, Naoto inspired to be a police officer or a detective. While other girls wanted nice dresses to look and feel like a princess, Naoto wanted suits and coats to help make her feel like a detective and while other girls dreamed of finding their prince, Naoto only dreamed of becoming a detective and cracking cases. Naoto was as far away from the average girl as you would expect and choose instead to go into a field where her gender would unfortunately hold her back which is a shame because she’s really good at what she does and deserves to be treated as an equal in law enforcement by her peers. It’s no wonder why she embraces her nature as a reverse trap character and does her best to hide it. It’s sadly the only way she’ll get anywhere in the field she’s so passionate about.
And that’s my lists. Did I leave anyone out? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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