Manga iconography


Japanese manga has developed its own visual language or iconography for expressing emotion and other internal character states. This drawing style has also migrated into anime, as many manga stories are adapted into television shows and films. While this article addresses styles from both types of output, the emphasis here is on the manga origins for these styles.
The popular and recognizable style of manga is very distinctive. Emphasis is often placed on line over form, and the storytelling and panel placement differ from those in American comics. Impressionistic backgrounds are very common, as are sequences in which the panel shows details of the setting rather than the characters. Panels and pages are typically read from right to left, consistent with traditional Japanese writing.
Because manga is a diverse art form, however, not all manga artists adhere to the conventions most popularized in the West through series such as Akira, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Ranma ½.

Panel characteristics

There are several expressive techniques typical to the manga art form:
While the art can be incredibly realistic or cartoonish, characters often have large eyes, small noses, tiny mouths, and flat faces. Psychological and social research on facial attractiveness has pointed out that the presence of childlike facial features increases attractiveness. Manga artists often play on this to increase the appeal of protagonists. Large eyes have become a permanent fixture in manga and anime since the 1960s when Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney cartoons from the United States and started drawing them in this way.
Furthermore, inside the big eyes, the transparent feeling of pupils and the glares, or small reflections in the corners of the eyes are often exaggerated, regardless of surrounding lighting, although they are only present in living characters: the eyes of characters who have died are the color of the iris, but darker. Sometimes this death effect is also used to indicate characters who are emotionless due to trauma or loss of conscious control because of possession. In characters with hair partially covering the face, the eyes that would otherwise be covered are often outlined to make them visible, even when the hair is particularly dense and dark.
Certain visual symbols have been developed over the years to become common methods of denoting emotions, physical conditions and mood:

Eyes

Eye shape and size can be exaggerated or changed altogether. Love-hearts and doe-eyes indicate an infatuation, while stars indicate that the character is star-struck. Spirals indicate confusion or dizziness, while flames or wide empty semicircles indicate that the character is angry or vengeful. When dead, unconscious or stunned, "X"s are sometimes used as an indication of the state. Eyes may be replaced with two "<"s facing in opposite directions to represent a variety of emotions, such as nervousness or excitement. Eyes without pupils and with reflective glints indicate a state of delirium.
Enlargement of the eyes, where they become huge and perfectly round with tiny pupils and no iris and going beyond the reach of the face symbolises extreme excitement. Similarly, turning eyes into two thick half-circles, conveys a cute, delighted look.
The character's eye shapes and sizes are sometimes 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. Completely blackened eyes indicates a vengeful personality or underlying deep anger. It could also indicate that someone's being a wise-guy type, particularly when accompanied by grinning. 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. Bubbles forming in the corner of a child's or female character's eyes often indicate that the character is about to cry.

Mouth

Mouths are often depicted as small, usually rendered with one line on the face. A fang peeking from the corner of the mouth indicates mischief or feistiness. A cat mouth replacing the character's normal mouth, and usually accompanied by larger eyes may also represent mischief or feistiness.

Nose

Again, noses are often depicted as small, with only a brief L-shaped mark to locate them. With female characters, the nose can sometimes be removed completely when the character is facing forward. In profile, female noses are often button shaped, consisting little more than a small triangle. A nosebleed indicates sexual excitation following exposure to stimulating imagery or situation. It is based on a Japanese old wives' tale. A balloon dangling from one nostril indicates sleep.

Head and face

Sweat drops are a common visual convention. Characters are drawn with one or more prominent beads of sweat on their brow or forehead. This represents a broad spectrum of emotions, including embarrassment, exasperation, confusion, dismay and shock, not all of which are necessarily considered to be sweat-inducing under normal conditions. Actual physical perspiration in manga is signified by even distribution of sweat drops over the body, occasionally on top of clothing or hair.
Throbbing "cross popping" veins, usually depicted as a cruciform or triskelion in the upper head region, indicate anger or irritation. These shapes can sometimes be exaggerated, and placed on top of hair when the character is facing away from the viewer. Further throbs indicate additional anger. However, some manga such as Doraemon use smoke puffs to represent anger, and does not have the vein insignia.
A red cheek or hatchings on the cheek represent blushing, usually used when embarrassed by romantic feelings, while oval "blush dots" on the cheeks represent rosy cheeks. This can sometimes be confused with a scribble on the cheek, indicating injury. Sometimes when the character is expressing strong emotions, such as sadness, a long blush through the nose would appear.
Facial shape changes depending on the character's mood, and can look from round apple-shaped to a more subtle carrot shape.
Parallel vertical lines with dark shading over the head or under the eye may represent mortification, fatigue, or horror. If the lines are wavy, they may represent disgust. A far cuter way to represent frustration/mortification is that they tend to puff out their cheeks while their line is delivered in a gruff voice, an elongated "3" showing puffed lips, to emphasize that puffed look.
Hair colors of anime characters are not just selected randomly. In some cases they express significant elements of that person's character.
To better elicit a more emotional response with the audience for a certain character, a manga artist or animator will sometimes use certain traits in the character's design. The most common features include youthfulness as a physical trait or as an emotional trait such as a naive or innocent outlook, a childlike personality, or some obvious sympathetic weakness the character works hard to correct but never really succeeds to get rid of.
Other artistic conventions used in mainstream manga include: