Oddly-Visible Eyebrows

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Hair is transparent in the world of Gaea, apparently.

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.

Examples of Oddly-Visible Eyebrows include:

Just the Eyebrows

Anime and Manga

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

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.

Examples in which all facial features can be seen

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