Big Ol' Eyebrows

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
One Hundred And Ten Percent Lady-Proof

Naota: Those eyebrows...
Amarao: What about eyebrows?

Naota: ...Never mind.
FLCL, episode 4

An extremely old Japanese artistic convention is giving men bushy eyebrows. The manly oyaji usually has them, and it makes his expressions more imposing and tougher. A lot of older Shonen manga use this style to great effect. Unless it's specifically part of the art style, Big Ol' Eyebrows are a common Art Shift gag when a character is being overdramatic.

Women tend to get very thin eyebrows. Thicker eyebrows are usually just a convention to make their faces more noticeable or make their facial expressions funnier. But in a few anime, woman have thicker eyebrows which resemble long commas. It's the case of Momoko from Ojamajo Doremi and Honoka, Saki and Kurumi from the Pretty Cure franchise.

Usually related to Evil Eyebrows and Hotblooded Sideburns. See also Big Ol' Unibrow. A Subtrope of Unusual Eyebrows.

Examples of Big Ol' Eyebrows include:

Anime and Manga

  • Hyouma and Gaia from the wolf arc of the Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin manga. And these are wolves we are talking about here.
  • Kenshiro, the protagonist of Fist of the North Star, of which nearly every related parody seems obligated to use his eyebrows.
  • Ohta from Patlabor.
  • Played straight in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's - Tetsu Ushio has thick eyebrows in a permanent arch to underline his status as the overdramatic comic relief.
    • In Season 0 as well to make Ushio appear more threatining.
  • Amarao from FLCL takes this to ridiculous extremes with his prosthetic Oddly Visible Eyebrows, which is visually made out of digitally-rendered nori seaweed sheets. The fact that they're fakes only serves to emphasize his immaturity. Believed that they also keep Haruko from channeling N.O. through his head like she does with Naota, but this is unconfirmed.
    • They actually are intended to serve the same function as a tinfoil cap, although it's probably less because he doesn't want it to happen and more because the things that do come through are embarrassingly small (the guitar Haruko pulls from his forehead is barely big enough to be a slingshot).
    • Amarao also gives a pair to Naota to wear as protection. Of course, they don't last long.
  • Di Gi Charat features a strange blue onion-headed man whose Big Ol' Eyebrows are most visible in his usual explosive moods.
  • Rock Lee and Might Guy from Naruto are notorious for their thick eyebrows. Lampshaded numerous times:

Guy: You know, Lee, we're a lot alike, you and I.
Rock Lee: You mean the eyebrows?
Guy: ...No, I don't mean our eyebrows.

    • Naruto also lampshaded that, right after Guy's first appearance: "He's got bigger eyebrows than Lee! Almost as if these were aliiiiive!"
    • Hence, Naruto nicknames them "Bushy Brows" and "Super Bushy Brows-sensei."
    • More recently there's Urakaku [dead link], one of the Samurai from the Land of Iron, Sabu [dead link], the leader of the "Enka Ninja" troupe that Killer Bee wants to join, the Tsuchikage, and the (deceased) 3rd Raikage.
    • It's sometimes joked that Rock Lee stole Gaara's eyebrows (Gaara has no eyebrows at all)
  • The Fourth Raikage and the Third Tsuchikage has them as well.
  • Takehito Ito's character designs for Outlaw Star and other series tend to have big shaggy eyebrows, even when the characters are women or children.
  • Rich Bitch Dorothy Catalonia from Gundam Wing had strange, long, double-tufted eyebrows, prompting the Fan Nickname "Forked-Eyebrow Bitch". Her cousin Treize has a slightly toned-down version of the same thing.
    • Dorothy's eyebrows are seen by many fans as one of her defining traits, to the point of becoming a Running Gag; one official Yonkoma actually has her using them to imitate various Gundams' forehead crests, and there is at least one doujin where they turned into hands.
  • Souten Kouro features more than its share of Big Ol' Eyebrows. Especially noteworthy are Cao Cao's; it's not that they're all that thick, it's just that he has four of them.
  • Klan Klein in Macross Frontier is female, and when she's her natural 30 feet tall her eyebrows are normal, but when micronized down to her peculiar Sleep Mode Size four-and-a-half feet, her eyebrows are relatively gigantic.
  • Jumbo on Yotsuba&! has these. Ena compares the shiisa figurine Asagi gives her to Jumbo largely because of the eyebrows.
    • Fuuka has a pretty impressive set on her too. Nonono, impressive eyebrows! Eyebrows!
  • Played with The Prince of Tennis, where Satoshi Horio has a big ol unibrow.
  • England from Axis Powers Hetalia. Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Sealand, India, and The Principality of Wy have them too. In Hong Kong's case, this is supposedly because England placed a curse on them. Sealand has the same last name as England (and is, for all legitimate purposes, part of the UK) and is considered England's little brother. Curiously, Australia's eyebrows seemed even bigger than England's, at least in his preliminary sketch. New Zealand shares the brows due to being another former British colony, while Wy is considered Australia's younger sister.
  • Mugi from K-On! is an exceptional case of a girl with noticeable eyebrows, which apparently run in the family, although her eyebrows are more pickled-radish-shaped than they are bushy.
    • When Azusa imagines a more determined Yui, she imagines her with thick black eyebrows fixed in an angry position. In the background of her fantasy, the other members of the band each sport a pair as well.
    • In the bonus gag four-panel strips in the manga collections and Yui's fever-dream in the final episode of the anime's first season, they actually are pickled radishes.
  • Sumi from Amaenaideyo!! also qualifies as another exceptional case of bushy eyebrows.
  • Even though they are rather small, Momoko Asuka in Ojamajo Doremi is another female example. Hers were magnified in Naisho's ending sequence, and she is the comic relief after she shows up...
  • Headmaster Konoe in Mahou Sensei Negima has these. Yes, he is very old.
    • Ken Akamatsu was a big fan of this trope; many of the girls in his work have this feature, notably the "ideal" lead in A.I. Love You. Author Appeal, right there.
  • Asakura Ryoko, a tertiary character from Suzumiya Haruhi actually has noticeably larger eyebrows than the rest of the cast. This has not gone unnoticed by some artists and the results, well, see for yourself.
  • Azan of Berserk has these.
    • Not to mention the protagonist himself.
  • Gauron from Full Metal Panic! has some of the biggest and most unruly eyebrows out of the main characters.
  • Just about every male character in Lone Wolf and Cub except Daigoro has them. Itto's are positively Groucho-like.
  • Hajime Kindaichi in The Kindaichi Case Files. Just look at those things! [dead link]
  • Benkate from Et Cetera. So... bushy... (You'll know her when you see her.)
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann gives us Kittan Bachika. Rossiu's are also more prominent than the rest of the cast.
  • In Keroro Gunsou, Keroro occasionally displays Big Ol' Eyebrows when he's being overly dramatic.
  • Shinnosuke in Crayon Shin-chan has some impressive eyebrows for his age (5 years.)
    • And he manages to accidentally shave one of them off once in the manga. His mother's solution? Pick up a marker and draw the missing one!
  • Tenjho Tenge's Mitsuomi Takayanagi has some seriously impressive ones, with FORKED ENDS!
  • Ranger in Transformers Super God Masterforce has very big, bushy eyebrows.
  • Damos in Pokémon Arceus and The Jewel of Life has these, but he's a very strong man with Yami Yugi's voice, so it's okay. However, his descendant Sheena has the same eyebrows on a very pale, narrow face with otherwise dainty features... it looks pretty strange.
  • Yuki Yoshioka from Mitsudomoe has an extremely noticeable pair. Nobody really draws attention to them, but they draw more than enough attention to themselves.
  • The Puchuus from Excel Saga develop these when hit as well as an over-the-top angry Gonk face.
    • Those faces - and their eyebrows - are Golgo 13's.
  • While none of the characters you'd expect to see in such an over the top anime have big eyebrows, Code Geass gives us Kyoshiro Todoh, of all people, who seems to be the spiritual success or to Treize and Dorothy of Wing when it comes to the forked variation. Given, they're both Sunrise series... Charles, meanwhile, does not have overly huge ones, but impressive, nonetheless.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Gozaburo Kaiba has some rather large brows [dead link], to go along with his chops and 'stash.
  • Yuka Suzuki from Fairy Tail has eyebrows that could eat Amarao's for breakfast.
  • Many characters in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple have large eyebrows.
  • Bleach: Yamamoto's are hanging of the side of his face.
  • Some of the characters from Future GPX Cyber Formula have these, but the clearest examples are Randoll and Johji.
  • Blue Exorcist has Kamiki Izumo, whose nickname in-series (and among the fandom) is "Eyebrows". Amaimon also has them.
  • Soujirou (the triplets' father), Yuki and her father from Mitsudomoe
  • Miyamoto Musashi from Yaiba, whose eyebrows aren't only extremely thick but also longer than his body (it helps that he's very small).
  • One early episode of A Certain Scientific Railgun has somebody knocking out girls without being noticed and drawing Big Ol' Eyebrows on them (with permanent marker) while they're unconscious. The culprit was rejected by the boy she liked because she had Big Ol' Eyebrows herself.

Comic Books

  • Usagi Yojimbo has Inspector Ishida (with his notable monobrow) and Koji.
  • Used to comic effect in Asterix the Legionary — the Egyptian man, who speaks entirely in pictograms and hieroglyphics, describes both Asterix and the ship's captain with a symbol that the translator dictates as "old hairy eyebrows".
  • Depending on the Artist, Wolverine can qualify.

Film

  • Groucho Marx. Actually created via greasepaint, as was his iconic mustache (which is why he's here and not down in Real Life).
  • Thufir Hawat in Lynch's Dune. They're pretty big. It's possible this was supposed to be shared among mentats, at the other one, Piter DeVries, has some big ones too, but they're still not quite as big.
  • Mandy Patinkin wears ridiculously bushy eyebrows as a Villain in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. One of his fuzzy-bug Mooks comments "Those aren't his eyebrows; that's my aunt and uncle!"
  • The aptly named White Eyebrows, in the film Clan of the White Lotus, has spectacular, bushy, white eyebrows that extend off his face. They are quite a sight to behold.
  • In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the eyes of Flint's dad Tim are almost always hidden under his eyebrows. Raising his eyebrows is used for great effects throughout the movie.
  • Pei Mei (White Eyebrows) also appears in Kill Bill: Volume II, this time played by Gordon Liu (who defeated him in Clan of the White Lotus) and sporting an even more magnificent set of eyebrows.
  • Long Brows (Sammo Hung) in Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, fights with his eyebrows.
  • Keira Knightley as Georgiana Cavendish in The Duchess is a Rare Female Example. They're daunting, not to mention the cloudy 'fro that comes along.
  • Another female example is Lisa in The Room.
  • On The Secret of NIMH, both Nicodemus and the Great Owl have long, white eyebrows that hang off their faces. Jenner also has an impressive set of black bushy eyebrows, though nowhere near as long.
  • Ricky Caldwell, as played by Eric Freeman in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. His eyebrows overact as much as he does. They've even got their of Facebook group.
  • Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen in Twilight. They are so huge, on the verge of distracting, especially in New Moon when he says goodbye to Bella.


Literature

'Good morning' said Bilbo, and he meant it. [...] But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

    • The Rankin/Bass animated versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King took this maybe too literally, and gave Gandalf a titanic, impossibly bushy unibrow that, along with his similarly oversized beard, completely frames his (also huge) nose and eyes. His freaky appearance is used to great effect when he introduces himself with an extreme closeup shot.
  • Ogier in The Wheel of Time are described to all have very large eyebrows.
  • In PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, nerve specialist Rodrick Glossop is described as being bald with enormous eyebrows.


Live-Action TV

  • The Vulcans and especially the Romulans of Star Trek: The Original Series had some serious eyebrow action going on.
  • The boys of Gossip Girl have eyebrows that are so distracting as to verge on the Efronesque.
  • Sylar and Nathan from Heroes. Sylar even does this thing with his eyebrows when he's really ticked.
  • James Wilson on House. Many a piece of fanart feature his eyebrows. Prominently.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike. Made worse by the fact that they're a wildly different color than his platinum-blonde hair. Hell, just look at the picture up on the Badass Decay page.
  • Manny Santos on Degrassi the Next Generation saw Jane Vaughn swoon over Declan Coyne and asked her, "Who's Johnny Eyebrows?"
    • His actor said he stopped reading YouTube comments of the show promos when the first one was "Eyebrow tweezers. Heard of them?"
      • There's also Sean Cameron. Though his eyebrows are not as big as some of the other examples here, it's lampshaded nonetheless.
  • There is a subset of Stargate SG-1 fandom that is in love with Daniel Jackson's epic eyebrows.
  • In Pushing Daisies, Ned has a set of expressive eyebrows—in fact, Olive and Chuck identify his half-brothers in part because they also have Big Ol' Eyebrows.
  • Robbie Rotten from LazyTown has thick, arched eyebrows to emphasize that he is, in fact, the villain.
  • From Game of Thrones, little Arya Stark's noticeable eyebrows have not gone unnoticed by the viewers.
  • Breaking Bad: Though he's an extremely minor character, just about every scene involving Walt's former boss Bogdan includes someone calling attention to his absolutely massive eyebrows [dead link].

Walt: I said, 'fuck you!' And your eyebrows!


Puppet Shows

  • A lot of the male characters found in Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation shows have pretty large eyebrows, but none win better than Mike Mercury of Supercar, seriously!
  • Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham has a puppet, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, who has gigantic eyebrows despite being a skeleton. They're used to convey his emotions, since he has no other facial features to do so with - and they work surprisingly well.

Video Games

  • Elves in World of Warcraft have highly improbable eyebrows that extend conspicuously beyond their faces, yet are still rather thin.
  • In the Street Fighter series, especially earlier on, Ryu and Ken possessed excessively large eyebrows, apparently made from M. Bison, Balrog, and Guile's missing eyebrows. Ryu's are so big at times that they overlap his headband.
  • Star Trek Elite Force II gave us Mr. Stemmons, the Obstructive Bureaucrat with truly outrageous eyebrows.
  • Jill from the GBA Drill Dozer, but hers are nothing compared to her dad's epic unibrow, WOW.
  • Mafia boss Winfred "Big Wins" Kitaki in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney couples this with Eyes Always Shut, initially giving many players the impression that his eyebrows are Sinister Shades (as he's a mafia boss).
  • The Japanese releases of Ratchet and Clank games gives Ratchet very thick, bushy eyebrows that many American fans refer to as "woolly bear caterpillars" - his eyebrows are fairly thick in the American version as well, but the Japanese release specifically stated he was given thicker eyebrows "so fanartists would have a place to start drawing from."
  • This seems to run in the Mishima Family. Jin's and Kazuya's are impressive, but somewhat less than grandpa Heihachi's. The Spoony One spoofed this in his review of the anime and live-action Tekken movies by wearing progressively larger construction paper eyebrows.
    • Ganryu, another Japanese character, sports these.
  • Professor Pickle in Sonic Unleashed.
  • Piston Honda of Punch-Out!! has giant eyebrows that have their own sound effect. He twitches them before he punches, which is your cue to dent his face.
  • Lord Gongora from Lost Odyssey has extremely bushy eyebrows. His unwilling lackey Jansen even refers to him as 'Lord Eyebrows'.
  • Yukari Yakumo from Touhou Project normally has average eyebrows, but gets subjected to this trope in the works of Doujinshi circle Hot Dog Chuck.
    • Cirno now gains an official one with Touhou 12.8.
  • Princess Suzushiro Shikikagura from Princess Waltz sports a pair prominent enough to earn an extra look and a nickname ("Eyebrows Girl") from Liliana.
  • K.K. Slider from the Animal Crossing games has some powerful brows. Better yet, they're based on a real guy.
  • Winfred "Big Wins" Kitaki from Apollo Justice Ace Attorney has his eyes covered by his insanely thick eyebrows until the end of the trial. His eyes are revealed to be tiny and insatiably cute. Kind of a subversion really, since before that, you're meant to think his eyebrows were his deeply-sunken eyes, making Winfred look insanely scary.
  • Ganondorf of the Zelda series sports a particularly magnificent pair of eyebrows that are not only bushy, but actually extend back to join with his hair.
  • Maxi of Soul Calibur fame. So extraordinary are his eyebrows they received their very own jiggle physics.
  • The Worms have rather prominent eyebrows. So much that a cross promotion item of one of their helmets has a sculpted in pair of them.
  • Axel from Disgaea has two large eyebrows shaped like lightning bolts.
  • Commander Sith from Ghost Trick. His eyebrows are so large they probably qualify as his hairstyle.
  • Van from Tales of the Abyss has pretty prominent eyebrows. According to Anise they can shoot lasers - Natalia believed it.
  • Lampshaded in Dungeons of Dredmor.

Propaganda Poster "Fear the large eyebrowed man for he brings only suffering and strange disease. Fight him to the last."

    • Even better is one of the random enemy taunts: "Your eyebrows will not protect you this time!"
  • Thunder Bomber from Bomberman Online and Bomberman Jetters has very large eyebrows which are shaped like lightning bolts.
  • Many of the Angry Birds.
  • All of the Mr Saturns in EarthBound and Mother 3 sport the most magnificent eyebrows, each roughly as large as ten of their eyes.
  • Strider Hiryu sports these as well. Take a look at his manga appearance!


Web Comics


Web Original

  • Homestar Runner plays with this one a bit in the SB Email "Haircut", where Strong Bad remarks on specifically this kind of eyebrow, (Making this the Trope Namer - "There we go. One hundred and ten percent lady-proof."
  • Epic Fail Guy of 4chan fame, when not depicted wearing a Guy Fawkes Mask, is a standard stick figure with outrageously long eyebrows.
  • The "Twinkie Brows" meme on Gaia Online refers to Johnny K. Gambino and his son Gino (a bit jarring, since Gino is otherwise a typical Bishounen). It's been speculated that Labtech X has them as well.
    • One of Gino's dolls now comes with a "Twinkie Brows" pose. The Bad Moon evolving item also included outrageous eyebrows in a variety of colors, including blue, green, and oh-god-my-eyes pink.
  • In Metal Gear Awesome, Solid Snake's eyebrows bulge out at the slightest provocation. At one point they branch out and sprout oranges.
  • In a Rare Female Example, The Nostalgia Chick. What's kind of amusing about this is that the Critic, her Spear Counterpart, has smaller, thinner, blonder eyebrows; which are considered far girlier.


Western Animation


Real Life

Males

Females

While hardly big by the standards of this page, some women also have Big Ol' Eyebrows - especially in comparison with the usual female "plucked eyebrow" look.

Other Media

  • Daruma dolls often have big eyebrows painted on them (though they don't usually come with eyes painted on).
  • All the penguins belonging in the Eudyptes genus have big, yellow eyebrows that extend beyond their faces.