Everyone reading this is presumably familiar with anime to the point that they know most of the visual anime tropes used to communicate emotion or humor. But how do you feel the first time you saw these strange anime sight gags on screen? Were you confused? Let’s look at the top eight visual anime tropes that confused us when we saw them the first time.
Anime Nosebleeds
We’ve all seen it: an anime girl or boy sees something sexy and suddenly get s nosebleed. Apparently, the trope came from a silly 1970 manga called Yasuji’s Life Lessons for Messed Up Kids.
Rich Girl Laugh
I love the backhanded Oh ho ho ho! laugh that rich or haughty girls in anime do. It’s a trope only seen in anime (anyone doing it in real life is making an anime reference), but Japanese women do actually cover their mouths when they laugh, as it’s considered rude to show your teeth in public. It’s quite a cute gesture.
Fang Girls
Girls with two fangs, like Lum from Urusei Yatsura, are showing their angry or demonic sides. A single fang is supposed to denote the crooked teeth called yaeba which the Japanese find super charming. You can actually buy fake yaeba to stock on your teeth.
Anime Glasses Physics
Glasses in anime always shine with evil light at just the right moment when some drama is needed. Also, when the camera needs to view the character from the side, the frames conveniently disappear into hyperspace
Strange Facial Reactions
From the “giant sweat drop” that appears above the head of characters who are in a frustrating situation to the “blue stress lines” that appear when a character is about to have an embarrassing secret revealed, these visual sight gags probably seem quite strange the first time we see them.
The Anger Mark
When a character gets really mad veins will pop out like this 💢. This is called the ikari mark (anger mark). When my daughter was young, she saw a German model aeroplane we had in our house and told me that the aeroplane was angry.
Prehensile Hair
Ahoge (“idiot hair”), a single strand of unkempt hair that’s part of a character’s unique charm, was popularized by the 1996 Leaf eroge Kizuato. As the anime trope has evolved, these ahoge became tools to communicate emotion and comic elements of the story.
Sleeping Snot Bubble with Drool
Some visual anime tropes can be hard to get used to, like the “sleeping snot bubble” that shows up in almost every anime and manga, which is usually paired with drool sliding out of the sleeping person’s open mouth. It’s such a part of visual culture throughout Asia that there are official emoji for both (😪 and 🤤).
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