article: visual language of manga

• Sweat drops, usually drawn largely on the head region, commonly indicate bewilderment, nervousness, social discomfort, or mental weariness. On a sidenote, actual physical perspiration in manga is signified by even distribution of sweat drops over the body.


• A round swelling, sometimes drawn to the size of baseballs, is a visual exaggeration of swelling from injury.


• A nosebleed indicates sexual excitation following exposure to stimulating imagery or situation. It is based on a Japanese old wives' tale[1]


• Throbbing veins, usually depicted as a cruciform in the upper head region, indicate anger or irritation.


• Hatchings on the cheek represent blushing, usually used when embarrassed by romantic feelings, while oval "blush dots" on the cheeks represent rosy cheeks.

The following is a non-exhaustive and incomplete list of artistic conventions used in mainstream manga and their place of origin.

• A white cross-shaped bandage symbol denotes pain.


• A large sweat drop on the side of the face denotes a broad spectrum of emotions, usually embarrassment or exasperation.


• A scribble on the cheek can show injury; it is also used in black-and-white media to denote red cheeks, i.e. blushing.


• A red cheek denotes embarrassment or blushing.


• A throbbing vein, sometimes comically simplified to a "+" shaped outline on the head (or occasionally other body parts, especially fists), represents anger or irritation.


• A balloon dangling from one nostril (a "snot bubble") indicates sleep.


• Electricity shoots out on the eyes of two characters when they are fighting.


• Nosebleeds, usually caused by shocking sights - especially those with a sexual undertone.


• There are many eye symbols such as love-hearts, crosses, flames, stars, and spirals.


• A character suddenly falling onto the floor, usually with one or more extremities twisted above him or herself, is a typically humorous reaction to something ironic happening.


• The pupils disappearing from the eyes, and the iris gaining a glass-like glare smoothness denotes loss of conscious control because of possession (ghost, demon, zombie, magic, etc).


• The eyes becoming huge and perfectly round with tiny pupils and no iris and going beyond the reach of the face, plus the mouth becoming like a stretched semicircle, the point of which extends past the chin, symbolises extreme excitement.


• All facial features shrinking, the nose disappearing, the character lifting off the floor and the limbs being multiplied as if moving very fast symbolizes panic; if the same but with larger facial features it symbolises comic rage.


• Tear drops everywhere indicate intense joy or sadness.


• An ellipsis appearing over a character's head indicates a silence, implying that something is going unsaid.


• Eye shapes and sizes are often symbolically used to represent the character. For instance, bigger eyes will usually symbolize beauty, innocence, or purity, while smaller, more narrow eyes typically represent coldness and/or evil.


• More often than not, character colorizations tend to represent the character in some way. A more subdued character will be colored with lighter tones, while a flamboyant character will be done in bright tones. Similarly, villains are often colored in darker tones, while colder character will be given neutral tones (black, white, grey, etc.).


• An odd white shape (more often than not, something close to a mushroom) that appears during an exhale represents a sigh of awkward relief or depression.


• Completely blackened eyes (shadowed) indicates a vengeful or deep anger. It could also indicate that someone's being sort of a wise-guy, grinning.


• Characters push their index fingers together when admitting a secret or telling the truth to another.


• A character's eyes are shadowed regardless of the lighting in the room when they become angry, upset, something is wrong with them, or they are emotionally hurt.


• The anime character's eyes turn into two thick half-circles, conveying a cute, delighted look.


• Face expressions change depending on their mood, and can look from apple shaped to a more subtle carrot shape.


• Parallel vertical lines with dark shading over the head or under the eye may represent mortification or horror. If the lines are wavy, it may represent disgust.


• A wavy ghost coming out of the mouth is often a comical representation of depression or mortification.


• Cherry blossoms indicate a sweet or beautiful moment. This is a reference to Mono no Aware.


• A flower blossom falling off its stem may indicate death or, more commonly, sex.


• A fang peeking from the corner of the mouth indicates mischief or feistiness. (Unless, of course, the character has fangs normally).


• A cat mouth (like a number "3" rotated 90° clockwise) replacing the character's normal mouth, and usually accompanied by larger eyes may also represent mischief or feistiness.


• Unbound hair may represent freedom, while hair that is tied back may represent some form of either literal, figurative or emotional enslavement of some kind.

• Dramatic moments tend to distort time, either by slowing it down (usually long enough to call out the name of an attacker or the name of the "special move" used in the attack, or for bystanders to comment on the situation), or by looping three times.
  
  
  
  • Similarly, transformations (especially those animated with stock footage) also seem to stop time until completed, allowing them to be used to counter attacks, or not allowing the person to be attacked while performing them.
  
  
  • Death is not instantaneous to significant characters. Permanent death is also a rare occurrence.
  
  
  
  

• Humans are capable of instantaneously freezing into solid ice or transforming into stone when surprised and/or embarrassed.
  
  
  
  • In lesser cases, a person's forehead will instantly turn blue.
  
  
  
  

• When a character is in an extremely pensive mood, the entire area around him/her will disappear into a featureless black void, while he/she remains illuminated by a misty light coming from an unknown but vertically located source.

• Intense emotion can be manifest in audible artifacts as well as physical/visual ones. For example, intense grief or concern imparts a slow repeat echo to the human voice in dramatic situations, even when appropriately placed reflective surfaces are not present. However, the amount of echo thus imparted is inversely proportional to the number of words, with anguished cries of another person's name usually receiving the most echo.

• In a series where characters change size, the opponents must be of the same size to battle. The hero(es) cannot use their mech or their larger form to squish the monster, nor can the monster grow and squish the hero(es). This is also found in Tokusatsu series, especially Super Sentai, but not in Kaiju films, where monsters such as Godzilla often stomp humans at will.

• Sorrowful crying with much feeling can force tears to gush out like waterfalls. Usually used only during humorous situations, while in dramatic situations, the tear flow is more realistic.

• Angry scolding to another character causes the scolder to enlarge and grow sharp fangs while the person being scolded will shrink.

• Attacks strong enough to shred entire planets will not destroy anyone's clothes or hair. Conversely, certain explosions can destroy a female character's clothing without significantly harming her body—in some cases, without her initially noticing this.

• Any fire-based attack on a character will not completely burn his/her clothes but will leave black stains instead.

• A single cut can be made swiftly, cleanly. This is possible with any object, particularly with hands, paper, swords, and even air.
  
  
  
  • A sword, especially a katana, can cleanly cut through anything, even including large objects (such as ships) and hair, but not through other swords. There is a slight loophole in this law - if an expert fighter (even if using hand-to-hand techniques) wishes to end a duel with an obviously lesser opponent in an appropriately dramatic way, he can execute an appropriately dramatic attack that destroys his opponent's weapon-often without their knowledge; after completing a seemingly successful attack, they will notice the expert is unharmed and look at their weapon quizzically, at which point it will either fall into two cleanly cut pieces (in a dramatic battle) or shatter like glass (in a comedic battle).
  
  
  • Wooden katanas (bokken) can cut just as well as the real thing (and are almost never destroyed by the aforementioned loophole), if not better.
  
  
  
  

• Faster than light travel is possible with many characters, particularly those engaged in martial art battles; and so a vehicle is not required.

• Trains and other unlikely forms of transportation can fly, through either technology or magic. And the bigger it is, the faster it moves.

• Any female can, if angered by someone, pull out a wooden rice mallet, of any proportions, from hammerspace and hit the offender with it to let go of some aggressions. It should be noted that, no matter how large the mallet is, or how flat the offender gets after the pounding, he/she will always revert to original shape without having to experience any lasting health deterioration from the whole ordeal. A good example of this is in the anime Pokémon: when Misty explained her hatred of bugs, she whacked Caterpie with a rice mallet.

• Death can be suspended until it is appropriate, suspenseful, or ironic. During the end part of some battles, characters may opt to charge at one another with their sword, meaning to chop the other in half. At the point of contact, all that will be seen is a bright white slash going across the screen, but it will remain unclear who is hurt. The two characters will then stay, kneeling on the floor, facing away from each other, until the evil character falls into pieces, having been killed minutes earlier.
  
  
  
  • For added dramatic effect, the good character will clutch the area that they were hit or cough up blood, after the two have performed their attacks and are facing away from each other, making it appear as though they lost. A few moments later, the evil character will fall to the ground, defeated.
  
  
  • Also note, death is never, under ANY circumstance, certain, a character can be impaled, literally from navel to nose and come back later, unscathed.
  
  
  
  

• Every human body contains 16 gallons of blood under high pressure-a familiar term used is 'to make it rain blood'.
  
  
  
  • This will not occur if whatever inflicts the wound is left in it, which allows the attacker to withdraw it, turn, wipe it clean and put it away-blood may begin spraying from the wound like a firehose after any one of these actions. Alternatively, the mortally wounded character may pull it out himself and use it to execute a final attack.
  
  
  • Non-impaling wounds, such as being crushed or falling from a great height, usually do not cause these geysers of blood, but nosebleeds will often fountain impressively immediately upon a character's recognition of appropriate portions of an attractive female body. This is apparently true conversely, as sexual innuendo in the form of a guitar causes significant nosebleeds in the female cast of FLCL.
  
  
  
  

• Loud noises, such as screams of anguish and explosions, can be heard from space. All sounds can be transmitted in space, e.g. transmitted differently then with air-compression waves.

• Band-aids heal anything and everything, especially when applied with care.

• Any pain inflicted in a humorous fashion will almost never cause any lasting damage.

• Whenever a female character falls down while running in any non-humorous scene, she will almost certainly sprain her ankle in such a way that movement becomes impossible.
  
  
  
  • Furthermore, if the character is the leading female character, she will be found or be in the company of the male lead and he will carry her on his back, sparking a deeper romantic interest.
  
  
  
  


• Should two characters of the opposite sex fall within proximity of each other, the male's face will end up planted in the female's crotch or chest. Skirts will helpfully flip up to provide maximum humiliation to both parties, and shirts will open to reveal maximum cleavage. Towels will fly off both parties for this same reason. In the rare occasion that the female is wearing pants, the male will instead be on top of the female while groping the female's breast(s).

• In a similar sexual vein, a pre-adolescent girl will blossom out with full breasts and hips, sometimes growing instantly out of her clothing (common in erotic manga.)

• Characters, mostly men, can run perfectly and quickly, with their arms trailing behind them or sticking straight out from their sides. This is often done in a comical fashion, and possibly fleeing from an angered female character.

• The hero always wins with two exceptions
  
  
  
  • a. the other guy cheated
  
  
  • b. the other guy is a master at fighting or something
    
    
    
    • b1. Amendment: no matter how strong the other guy is, the hero will be able to beat him or her with an intense compacted training session, usually in the span of one day(unless handwaving time compression technology is available, enabling the hero to accomplish weeks or months of training in that same period of time).
    
    
    • b2. Amendment: the other guy can win, but the hero will then proceed to train while dead in a variety of ultimate techniques, and will then return from the dead. All but the last technique trained in will cause damage, but will not defeat the other guy. The hero will then use the final technique. This technique often is said to result in death for the user, but almost always fails to do so.
    
    
    • b3. Amendment: the other guy will eventually like the hero and instantly switch sides, often including a tear jerking, episode long flashback that involves crying, childhood memories, and random other events involving the other guy, often in the middle of a battle with time standing still (Often in tandem with first example).
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

• In most manga series the main characters (most times a boy) will always be secretly coveted by a girl, which later blooms into a relationship.

• In some occasions, some characters' injuries heal much quicker. (i.e. One Piece)

• No matter the relative strengths or abilities, a male character always takes a maximum amount of damage when punched by an angry female character in a comedic manner (often with the male being knocked bodily to the ground or across a room)

• Multiple smaller sweatdrops: May indicate nervousness or fear.

• Blushing of the cheeks or a red, blue, or purple bar across the nose: Indicates embarrassment, love or sometimes even a sense of fear.
  
  
  
  • Blushing is also commonly used to depict drunkenness.
  
  
  
  

• Pulsating crossed forehead veins: Indicates anger, rage or irritation.
  
  
  
  • If viewed from behind, veins can be viewed through hair, no matter how thick.
  
  
  
  

• Large, shining eyes: Indicates "cute" excitement.

• Flames in eyes: Indicates immense passion, usually accompanied by scared characters in background

• Normal eyes replaced with circular white eyes (usually with a black outline): Indicates surprise, shock, vacancy, a lack of intelligence or an instance where the character is "struck dumb". It can also mean extreme pain (often featured in One Piece and Naruto).

• Little twinkling stars appear around the character's face. Usually indicates idealism, often about a girl. (Sometimes featured in Trigun.)

• Rivers of tears underneath the eyes indicate comedic anguish or discontent.
  
  
  
  • Balls of tears have also been used for the same purpose, either with large balls hanging on a string below the eyes, or as small balls just below the tear ducts.
  
  
  
  

• Lumps of flesh growing humorously on a character's head if he/she has been hit in the head.
  
  
  
  • Occasionally, when a character is hit in the head more than once, however many extra times the character was hit will appear as small lumps on top of the large one.
  
  
  
  

• Eyes shaped like half-moons with very tiny pupils:
  
  
  
  • Indicates a devilish intent, usually accompanied by a toothy grin, a flash on the corner of one of the eyes and sometimes the flat side of the eyes will form a V.
  
  
  • Indicates anger, usually the flat side of the eyes will form a V parallel to the eyebrows (if any).
  
  
  • The character is totally uninterested in the situation, usually accompanied by a flat small line as their mouth or simply having no mouth at all.

• The sudden appearance of vertical lines on the face, indicates embarrassment or speechlessness in response to some absurdity.

• Character does a The Scream pose, indicating fear or great anguish.

• Character turns into a cracked stone statue or a sand pillar (having part of the body being blown away), indicating great emotional shock.

• Character is frozen by ice can either indicate:
  
  
  
  • Someone just said something out of extreme stupidity.
  
  
  • One of the characters told a joke (usually an old pun) that is not funny anymore.
  
  
  • Occasionally, it will mean that another character is singing badly.
  
  
  
  

• General area around a character starts to snow, sometimes building up on and around them.
  
  
  
  • Someone has said something that is not funny.
  
  
  • The character has been shunned or ignored (the joke here being that they have been treated coldly).
  
  
  
  

• Character turns much smaller and cartoonish, looking like a doll; this is called "super deformed".
  
  
  
  • A body scaled as 4~5 times the height of the head indicates the situation is still similar to normal.
  
  
  • A body scaled as about 3 times the height of the head indicates the situation is greatly comical.
  
  
  • A body scaled as about 2 times the height of the head (the main body is equal to or smaller than the head), indicates the situation is only for comical effects.
  
  
  
  

• The character's upper face (from the eyes up) is blacked out. This shadow usually indicates serious sadness or shyness. It is sometimes used for character's in the background or for grunts, thugs and soilders to indicate a genaric extra.

• • Hair can be used for the same purpose and may be accompanied with the shadow. However, without the shadow, hair slightly covers the face but no eyes are visible behind it, where they should be. (Nodoka Miyazaki from Negima is commonly seen this way and is considered a hairstyle: On side views, only one eye is made out before the hair cover-up begins.)
  
  
  • Hats or other head wear can be used for the same purpose and may be accompanied with the shadow.
  
  
  • On rare occasuns, the eyes will be shown with the shadow, indicating a grim resolve. This is also seen in Pokemon with the team rocket grunts.
  
  
  
  


• Character becomes monochrome during states of extreme stress or shock.

• Character becomes a wavy paper doll and undulates, indicating shock or playful bliss.

• Character shakes their arms with their hands closed in fists, and they are shown as multiple flesh-colored balls with motion lines and no arms: Indicates irritation, impatience, confusion or loss of control, or occasionally, running away from something or someone. Many times this one is shown full-body, with the same effect happening for his or her legs.

• When the character hears something very interesting or shocking behind their back, their ear instantly becomes much bigger and moves. A variation of this one appears in Slam Dunk, in which lead character Hanamichi Sakuragi sometimes folds his ears closed when he does not want to hear what others are saying.

• Short vertical red lines appear or flash above the character's head before disappearing, indicating that something has caught the characters attention or understanding.

• Thin vertical blue lines appear over the character's forehead or back of head, often accompanied with a dark blue "aura": Indicates that the character is ashamed, guilty, afraid or depressed. (Commonly occurring in Ouran High School Host Club)

• When a white cloud-like puff flies out of a character's mouth and disappears: Indicates a sigh of exasperation, grudging acceptance, relief, boredom, or disappointment.

• Character's head becomes giant as it screams their anger at somebody else.
  
  
  
  • Two character's heads may take turns in alternating between a "giant head" and a normal head as they are having an argument, each taking turns yelling at each other.
  
  
  
  

• Jaw drops all the way down to the floor. Another version of this is when the jaw is detached from the head and falls downs as a separate object after dangling. This is usually accompanied by buggy eyes or occasionally, eyes falling out.

• Pupils disappear, indicating shock, anger, or a bad pun. They may also disappear in times of extreme pain.

• When eating some spicy food, a character's face turns entirely red. The character's lips might turn swollen and red and the character occasionally breathes fire.

• Characters sometimes fly off into the distance and finally disappear as a star in the sky when defeated in a duel. This is a common running gag in the Pokémon series with Team Rocket, appearing also sometimes in Love Hina, and characters can be KO'd in this way in the Super Smash Bros. video game series. In-game, this is known as a "Star Finish" ("Star KO" in Melee).

• The character will knock another character into the air when something stupid is said. (Frequently seen in Ranma ½)

• Two rivals may glare at each other, and have lightning bolts cross the gap between their eyes.

• Spirals replacing the eyes indicate that the character is under hypnosis, using hypnosis, or subconsciously attracted towards something as though they were hypnotized. Alternatively, spiraled eyes could indicate that the character is unconscious, but usually after a more trivial or comedic fight rather than a major battle. These are also used if the character is dizzy. Spiraled eyes are often accompanied by a completely white, banana-shaped mouth with equally white drool dripping down one corner. (Frequently seen in Rurouni Kenshin)

• Hearts replacing the eyes while the character clasps their hands is a sign that the character is attracted to someone.

• The screen colors being inverted generally represents moments of unexpected pain, such when someone is shot or hit with a knife. This effect can also be used to express extreme shock.

• When mocking or imitating another character, a character's face can actually morph into the face of the indivdual that they are mocking/imitating.

• A large spherical bump of skin with black dots shows up on the head (through the hair, in this case) or another part of the body if it gets hit (the black dots representing skin pores). Sometimes a crossed patch may appear on top of it.

• A large bubble coming out of the nose of the character indicates sleep (from boredom or exaustion for example). Female characters are almost never shown with nose bubbles

• Eyes in which the pupils and irises disappear could either indicate shock or depict a charicter who is blinded (usually the latter).

The background may change to suit the mood of the scene, usually disregarding the physical setting of the scene. For instance:

• Action scenes (more prominently those that focus in a single character) have for background a dynamic set of parallel lines, all of the same color hue and drawn in the direction the character is going to (if they are facing forward though, these lines are vertical).


• The background of a romantic scene or the introduction of a beautiful and attractive character may be a motif of flowers or a translucent scene with twinkling lights (sometimes also containing bubbles).


• A scene where one character is in a rage may have a distorted, jagged background showing flames.


• A sudden gust of wind (and/or a loud crow flying in the background in a very straight line; the sound of the crow is a pun on its sounding like a-ho which means stupid) accompanying a bad joke or embarrassment. (this is a running gag in Episode 101 of Naruto)


• An expression of disbelief is commonly accompanied by a single-color background with prominent vertical black lines at the top of the frame.


• A lone spotlight shining on a character comically dramatizes despair. (see Menchi from Excel Saga)


• A kyokujitsuki war flag appears behind the character when they feel extremely and unreasonably proud or determined, complete with them standing on a heroic pose. It usually has a trumpet sounding in triumph as background music.
  
  
  
  • Alternatively, they might be standing near a sea with giant powerful waves.
  
  
  
  


• Hitodama appear floating near the character when they feel depressed or scares other characters with their dark attitude.


• Very anguished character falls down in a very dark void with other objects circling them.