Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Wide-Eyed

For the sake of completeness, in anime, when a character becomes wide-eyed and sweating cold, the term for those eyes end up being nekome 猫目, "cat eyes."

Koshigaya Komari 越谷小鞠, example of "cat eyes," nekome 猫目.
Character: Koshigaya Komari 越谷小鞠
Anime: Non Non Biyori のんのんびより (Episode 2)

Examples

From time to time, in anime you see a character's expression that looks like this:

Handa Sei 半田清舟, angry and frustrated, example of "cat eyes," nekome 猫目.
Character: Handa Sei 半田清舟
Anime: Barakamon ばらかもん (Episode 8)

With these weird, narrow eyes and solid color irises, plus a shadow all over them.

Apparently, this is a style of "cat eyes," nekome 猫目, so this is a variation of the cat face expression.

A few reasons to believe this:

First, these eyes sometimes accompany a "cat mouth," nekoguchi 猫口, just like the usual cat face would.

Koshigaya Komari 越谷小鞠, example of "cat eyes," nekome 猫目.
Character: Koshigaya Komari 越谷小鞠
Anime: Non Non Biyori のんのんびより (Episode 2)
  • ´ⓛ ω ⓛ`

Second, there are cat characters in anime actually drawn with this style of eyes.

Chiyo's father, Chiyo-chichi ちよ父, a cat.
Character: Chiyo's father, Chiyo-chichi ちよ父
Anime: Azumanga Daioh あずまんが大王 (Episode 9)
  • A cat.

Third, the design of Link from Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is called "cat-eyed Link," nekome Rinku 猫目リンク, due to his eyes looking exactly like this.

"Cat-eyed Link," nekome Rinku 猫目リンク.
Game: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Zeruda no Densetsu Kaze no Takuto ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト

Fourth, when Nike and Kukuri were turned into cats, losing the ability of speak human language and saying unyoraa ウニョラー and toppirokii トッピロキー instead, their eyes looked like this:

Nike ニケ, and Kururi ククリ turned into cats. In the series, they say unyoraa ウニョラー and toppirokii トッピロキー instead of human language.
Left: Nike ニケ
Right: Kururi ククリ
Anime: Mahoujin Guruguru 魔法陣グルグル (2017) (Episode 14)

And lastly, if you search for it, you can find illustrations on Pixiv tagged as nekome that feature similar eyes, so these are called nekome, I guess.

Faces & Expressions

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