Girl crushing on a boy's alter-ego

[BWTraveller]

OK, I'm looking for some good stories where at least for a time a major female character crushes on a major male character's alter-ego, whether this be a disguise or a powered-up transformation or anything of the sort. Especially those in which the girl doesn't know that the two are the same person, and where the girl has some close associations with the "real/normal" version of the guy. Doesn't matter whether the girl gets along with the real version of the boy or not, though I'd prefer something where, like typically seems to happen, she ultimately loves the real version too in the end.

This seems to be fairly common in magical girl series. Most striking in Sailor Moon. The girl is constantly at odds with a jerk from school, either fighting with him or getting teased by him, while swooning over Tuxedo Mask, and I believe she falls for the real deal before she manages to see through his paper-thin disguise.

I also recall in the young-audience series Brave Beats the female lead is shown almost immediately crushing on the cool older guy who keeps saving her life. At the same time she is lightly implied to have some feelings for her childhood friend, who's always concerned about her, and even seems to get upset and uneasy around him as her crush on the older guy grows, until she realizes that they are one and the same person and it was always Hibiki from the start trying to protect her.

A more distant version that I'm less fond of has the hero possess a separate personality/persona within him that the girl falls in love with. For instance, if I understand right, the Nura series has the hero transform into a yokai with a very different personality, and the hero's crush is interested in said second self. Not that I've seen it to judge.

[grecefar]

Well the first yu-gi-oh fit perfectly with what you want... don't know if you already saw it and there's not much romance anyway.

[PhoenixRising]

Well, in terms of those types of animes then Ryuusei no Rockman and Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future had those scenarios.

In Ryuusei no Rockman, there was a rich girl (I can't remember her name) who fell in love with Ryuusei's alter-ego, Rockman, but she couldn't stand him in real-life until she found his real identity. While in Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future, the main character Mia had a crush on Prism Ace who was alter-ego of Jun, one of the managers at Pretty Prism. Though that scenario was played for laughs since he was an exact parody of Tuxedo Mask and the main joke was that everyone else besides Mia instantly knew who he was while Mia remained clueless about it.

Also like Grecefar, said the first yugioh and Yugioh Vrains would count too because there is shipping between Yusaku and Aoi. There's also Tokyo Mew Mew which is another magical girl anime which has that kind of story.

But, besides the magical girl and superhero animes, I don't think there's very many serious anime that has that kind of story scenario.

Oh, though I guess, Romeo x Juliet does count.

[jedinat]

Ultimate!!! Hentai Kamen has that element, if I remember correctly.

[cyberdemon]

There is DNAngel

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by cyberdemon

There is DNAngel

Only problem with that, and with YGO as well, is that Dark isn't actually his alter ego. An alter ego, to me at least, is either a disguise or a transformation that at most results in certain aspects of your personality becoming more prominent. Nura is a good example here: the yokai version is still the same Rikuo, but some aspects of his personality are brought out or suppressed that were suppressed or prominent in the normal form. On the other hand, Dark is an ancestor/spirit that inhabits Daisuke's body. Thus his initial crush isn't falling in love with a side of him he doesn't often show but does in this alter-ego, she's falling in love with an ancient ghost who happens to hijack his body from time to time.

That said, while I wouldn't include it in this thread I would have rather liked to see

Spoiler:

his crush ultimately forgetting her crush on Dark and falling for him as well, even though he'd still wind up with her sister.