covert pervert

“to have such an immoral and lewd plan coming out from you, what a surprise.”
— haruna to nodoka, mahou sensei negima!

uncharacteristically suggestive comments and thoughts from a character usually considered pure and innocent. sometimes this is played straight and shows that a character is mature or smart enough to notice subtle themes their friends don’t. most of the time it’s a trait given to a shy character to show they’re not quite as mousy and meek as we think. usually cued by fantasy segues becoming more and more lewd.

this will always be fiercely denied by the character, especially if they’re cantankerous and dismissive. the more comedic princess-like types often get this too, until it turns into a more overt running gag.
note that the t-tle refers to covertness in the figurative sense, not the literal. this trope is also truth in television — you know who you are. don’t say it, otherwise you won’t be one anymore. if the covert pervert is outed they may be subject to a girl getting set to pervert revenge mode or even an unprovoked pervert payback.

probably due to the often-seen double standard that women should not show their s-xuality openly, over half of the examples of this trope are female, while perverted male characters tend to be obvious.
a covert pervert could be defined as something like:

”guy 1: hey you know that girl from cl-ss?”
”guy 2: you mean the nerdy, shy and insecure girl?”
”guy 1: yeah her. i bet the last thing we would ever hear from her are for her to say something dirty.”

”nerdy guy: whaow that villian’s sword is pretty big”
”girl: -mumbles- i bet that isn’t the only thing he got that is big…”