Oddly-Visible Eyebrows



This is not strictly speaking wholly limited to anime and manga, but one of their most noticeable artistic conventions -- after the big eyes and small mouth -- is the fact that most characters' eyebrows are always visible, even when hair, a hat, or a bandage ought to cover them up. It's not quite as extreme as the American cartoon breakfast cereal spokesman Cap'n Crunch, whose eyebrows are on his hat, but sometimes it does approach that level.

The eyebrows are drawn that way, of course, to make it easier to convey nuances of facial expression.

Not to be confused with Unusual Eyebrows, which are oddly visible for other reasons.

Anime and Manga

 * The title character of Inuyasha. Especially jarring since they appear to be a different color.
 * Applies to many characters, particularly because nearly all eyebrows seem to be black—and hair, especially on demons, is not.
 * Most everybody in Revolutionary Girl Utena.
 * Raimon "Monta" Taro of Eyeshield 21 takes it to nearly Captain Crunch-like levels. It's not that his hair is transparent, it's that his eyebrows simply go OVER his hair.
 * Arashi from Gad Guard's eyebrows are visble from her hair
 * Clannad
 * MM!
 * KimiKiss
 * Amagami
 * Uta Kata
 * Highschool of the Dead
 * The Legend of Legendary Heroes
 * Everyone in Tenshi ni Narumon.
 * Not only does K-ON's Tsumugi Kotobuki have unusually thick eyebrows, but the manga omake gags say they're takuan pickles!
 * THE iDOLM@STER

Video Games

 * The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker sets Link's eyes to be visible in front of his hair.
 * Ken of Street Fighter is generally drawn with his black eyebrows visible in front of his blond hair.
 * Though generally not a problem in the Ace Attorney series, some sprites with lighter hair display this trait, most notably Klavier Gavin, with his dark eyebrows clearly visible behind his platinum blonde hair.
 * Also evident with Olga Orly's eyebrows, which are surprisingly large for a female, and are able to be seen clearly through her hair.
 * Though not as obvious, this happens on both sets of Ema's sprites, her 16 year-old self and her adult self.
 * Maya's eyebrows can be seen in two of her sprites. In her confidant/cheeky sprite and temporarily in her shock sprite.

Web Comics

 * In The Church of Poisoned Minds, the author-avatar has hair that always covers his eyes - but this doesn't stop his eyebrows from showing up whenever they're needed to convey an expression.
 * A strip in the webcomic Strange Candy parodied this. They were stuck in a Shojo manga, and one of the guys was trying to make his eyebrows show through his bangs, like a Bishonen.
 * Artist Phil Foglio does this a lot; Agatha from Girl Genius is a good example.
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Princess Voluptua's antenna eyebrows are usually visible despite her big pompadour of hair.
 * Remarked upon in this comic.
 * In El Goonish Shive, this was originally averted but the trope was gradually brought in as part of the Art Evolution.
 * Nadine in Demolition Squad
 * Most characters in Ears for Elves with a fringe have these, though the brows are just a single line, but it's particularly noticeable on Myari. In order for her hair in its high tails to cover the same amount of face as it does on other characters, she has almost no forehead. However, her eyebrows can still be seen the right distance above her eyes—in the middle of her scalp.

Western Animation

 * Hanna-Barbera's Yogi Bear also had eyebrows that could be seen jutting up across the brim of his hat, and indeed, even his eyeballs followed suit, overlapping where a normal hat would clearly have covered part of them up.

Real Life

 * Given, this could be a slight example of Truth in Television; while it's not particularly easy to see a person's eyebrows or face through their hair, it's a lot easier than trying to see them through a solid block. So see-through-hair might just be the attempt at representing so many tiny strands being slightly easier to see through.

Anime and Manga

 * Umi Rengaya from the Excel Saga manga has hair which shows not only her eyebrows, but also her eyes, chin, and sometimes ears, to highlight both how transparent her attempts to flirt with Shiouji are, and how invisible she is to him.
 * Count D in Pet Shop of Horrors has bangs that sometimes fall over his face, without affecting his eyes or brows in any way.
 * Most of the characters (Van in particular, as he usually has borderline-Peek-a-Bangs) in Vision of Escaflowne, as pictured above.
 * Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
 * In Saint Beast, loads of characters have Peek-a-Bangs, leading to both eyebrows and eyes showing through their hair.
 * Happens quite a bit in the anime Saga of Tanya the Evil with the main character.

Web Comics

 * Ebbirnoth from Schlock Mercenary has (weirdly, two) eyebrows which seem to float independently of his single, giant eyeball. They remain external even when his 'head' is armoured, and remain even when his eye has been blown off and is regenerating in a giant fishbowl...
 * Just some WMG to liven your day, but it's possible that the eyebrows are some kind of prosthesis to facilitate Unioc-Human communications. Nonverbals must be a pain in Tagon's Toughs.
 * The webcomic Misfile, especially noticeable in the main character who has huge bangs that frequently cover large sections of her face.

Western Animation

 * Star vs. the Forces of Evil Star's bangs often transparently cover her eyebrows and parts of her eyes.