Kakeru Satsuki from 11eyes (left) and Nagisa Furukawa from Clannad (right)Ī character with hard-edged, narrowed eyes could possibly be either straight-up evil, morally ambiguous, or perhaps just have a jaded outlook on the world. Shirou Emiya from Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks (TV) (left) and Irisviel von Einzbern from Fate/Zero (right) This is especially used in " moe," where pretty much everybody (even the boys to a degree) are meant to be utterly adorable, so that when the eyes are drawn and detailed in varying ways depending on what the characters are feeling, it evokes a strong emotional reaction in the viewer. They might also have affectations of cuteness, or the potential for offering comic relief (just like the signature " ahoge"). Princess Nausicaa from Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) (left) and Kuroo Hazama from Black Jack (right)Īrtists and designers contemporary to Tezuka and since his time have instigated the evolution of the anime eye, developing various creations based on story and aesthetic, keeping in mind that character design can make or break the emotion of any scene.Ī character with large, wide eyes the size of saucers is often an innocent character who looks upon the world with vast curiosity and naive wonder. Osamu Tezuka's inspiration drawn from such large-eyed, American cartoon icons as Disney's Bambi and Donald Duck (there's even an episode of Black Jack (TV) featuring a deer that looks very much like the deer drawn in Disney's Snow White) sparked something in the industry that everyone clearly latched onto, as it's been an earmark of the medium ever since, from Tezuka to Hayao Miyazaki to designers like Masami Oobari and Takashi Takeuchi.
Character design overall plays a part in carrying through the emotion of any given scene, and such focus and careful attention to the design of the eyes alone proves effective in this effort. Much like how anime creators cast certain voices for certain roles (a bass voice for a villain, a tenor for a hero), or use certain hair styles and color palettes to define characters, so too do they define them by their eyes. Osamu Tezuka is one of the pioneers of art styles for anime eyes!Ītom from Astro Boy (left) and Kuroo Hazama and Pinoko from Black Jack (right) And the man to whom the industry owes this signature "anime style" is none other than Osamu Tezuka, who many refer to as the "godfather of anime and manga." Apart from creating the iconic Atom from Astro Boy, he also conceived Kimba from Jungle Taitei (picture above) and Kuroo Hazama from Black Jack, two iconic characters of our beloved medium. One of the most fascinating aspects of the anime and manga art form is the signature eye design: often overly exaggerated and given a wide range of detailing depending on the character to whom they belong and the emotion or emotions to be conveyed in any given moment or scene.
Explore the evolution of anime eyes through the eyes of history!įrom left to right: Leo from Jungle Taitei (Kimba the White Lion), Jungle Taitei (1989), and Jungle Taitei: Yuuki ga Mirai wo Kaeru (Jungle Emperor Leo)
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