"What diabolical thought is being hatched in the fevered brain of this poor, demented duck?"
"Those eyes... At that moment, Nagito's eyes... The darkness of his eyes shone brightly, as if layers upon layers of darkness were folding into each other... As if hope and despair had been crudely mixed together."
— Hajime Hinata, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Animators have a wide variety of ways to tell the audience what kind of character they're dealing with. Red eyes indicate a character is dangerous or evil. Blue eyes can represent innocence or coldness. Sometimes, eyes glow as a show of power, or turn themselves into unusual shapes in response to different emotions.
And then there are these.
Since the 1940s, eyes drawn with concentric circles (sometimes spirals) have represented mental instability. These circles naturally draw the viewer's eye towards the center, where the irises are often significantly smaller than usual. This gives the impression that the character is staring ahead deliriously, sometimes with an intense, single-minded focus that's not found in sane individuals. If the character's eyes are the main focus of the shot, it can even look like they're gazing past the fourth wall and directly at the viewer.
Typically, a character showing Crazed Concentric Eyes won't start the work with them. Maybe they've gone through hell earlier in the story, and now they have completely snapped. Maybe they were hiding behind a Mask of Sanity, and now that The Reveal has happened, they now have free rein to show off their madness in all its glory. In either case, this trope often punctuates especially scary scenes or climactic plot developments. If someone has them by default, then all bets are off.
Compare Mind-Control Eyes and Hypnotic Eyes, which can also look like concentric circles, and Twitchy Eye, which also shows that a character is unstable. No relation to Heavenly Concentric Circles or Mad Eye, despite the name.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Mei has rainbow-colored eyes that are red in the center and cycle through the colors going towards the edge. She is fully subservient to Hahari to the point where she becomes a force to be reckoned with when given an order by Hahari, and places absolutely no value on her own well-being in serving her.
- Beyblade Burst: Downplayed, most of the characters have concentric circles, but the mentally disturbed/crazy have more. In the first two seasons, we had: Lui Shirosagi (quite the psychopath), Free (has serious mental issues, especially if he's about to lose) and Shu Kurenai (All his "Red Eyes" period and even a bit after). Naturally, since this is a children's show, all of them end up being good at the end.
- Chainsaw Man:
- The Control Devil, both of her incarnations: Makima was sadistic and obsessed with the Chainsaw Man, Nayuta is "merely" an Enfant Terrible and both are Control Freaks.
- Makima's sister Yoru, lives up to this even more so. Her pupils are reddish-orange concentric circles and she's also batshit crazy and prone to incredible violence, fitting for the Devil of War. Yoru is often seen making deranged faces and declarations during and after battle.
- Naruto: Pain's Rinnegan is made of concentric circles, and he's got a pretty troubled backstory that made him believe he reached enlightenment through suffering and gave him a god complex.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: This, combined with Off-Model and Deranged Animation, is a staple for many major villains, to the point of becoming memetic.
Comic Books
- Batman/Superman: World's Finest: The Big Bad of the "Impossible" arc is Doom-Mite, a psychotic sixth-dimensional being whose left eye has yellow and purple rings in it, making him look deranged.
- Sonic the Comic: Super Sonic’s eyes are typically portrayed as filled with spirals, communicating to the reader his demented and insanely violent tendencies.
Films — Animation
- 101 Dalmatians: Cruella de Vil's eyes are shown with a thin black spiral and tiny asterisks for pupils when she goes on a violent Road Rage at the climax of the film.
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: J. Thaddeus Toad displays this when he's seen his first motorcar (after it's crashed into his horse and wagon, no less!) and descends into "motormania", desiring a motorcar of his own.
- Dead Leaves: Many of the characters have these by default as a part of Hiroyuki Imaishi's art style. It's very fitting for the absolute lunacy that is 99% of the OVA.
- The Emperor's New Groove: Yzma gains these from time to time, examples being when she was grammatically corrected by Kronk and when the latter is hesitant about breaking down the door.
- Fun and Fancy Free: In "Mickey and the Beanstalk", Donald Duck is shown with concentric circles in his eyes
when he has gone mad from starvation. It becomes extra-disturbing when he realizes he can still eat Mickey's cow and grabs an axe, intending to chop her to pieces.
- The Hobbit (1977) has characters under extreme duress express it this way — Gollum being a notable example.
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1979): Jadis the White Witch, frequently has close-up shots where her eyes go through a variety of comments, have concentric rings and pupils vanish, particularly when she is vexed or is on the cusp of doing something especially villainous.
- The Little Mermaid (1989):
- At the end of "Poor Unfortunate Souls", Ursula's eyes gain red concentric rings when she commands Ariel to sing. These rings reappear in a brief shot after she accidentally kills Flotsam and Jetsam with a blast from Triton's trident and becomes murderously enraged.
- During "Les Poissons", after trying to toss Sebastian into a boiling pot only to find out he's still alive when he pinches him, Chef Louie gets red rings in his eyes as he chases Sebastian around the kitchen with a cleaver while in a fit of rage.
- Make Mine Music: The wolf, as he gets closer from Peter and his friends.
- Yellow Submarine: The Chief Blue Meanie's eyes constantly have concentric circles in them whenever his mania overtakes him.
Films — Live-Action
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- The aptly-named "Psycho" is a deranged member of the Toon Patrol wearing a straitjacket. His eyes are layers upon layers of concentric circles, some of which are yellow and some of which are white.
- Judge Doom's eyes, once exposed as a Toon during the climax, are normally just wide, cartoonish red eyes on a human body for uncanny effect. However, when he walks towards Eddie Valiant with his arm transformed into a circular saw, his eyes become a constantly shifting mess of red and white that are spirals in some frames and concentric circles in others.
Video Games
- Crash Bandicoot: Recurring boss Ripper Roo is a constantly laughing and thoroughly Ax-Crazy kangaroo whose eyes are depicted either as orange and yellow concentric circles or as a spiral of orange and yellow. In Crash Twinsanity, they're constantly rippling outwards, which heightens the disturbing effect.
- Kirby Star Allies: After Hyness's hood is knocked off during the boss battle, his eyes are revealed to have concentric rings of yellow and blue. The Villainous Breakdown that ensues — complete with high-pitched screeching and unnatural gestures — only further proves how insane he's become after aeons in exile.
- Pokémon: Porygon-Z is a digital life-form described as prone to erratic and bizarre behavior due to its faulty programming. Its eyes have large black rings, which neither of its pre-evolutions have, to represent this.
- Super Mario Bros.: Iggy Koopa, member of the Bowser-serving Koopalings and consistently portrayed as a giggling maniac, has blue circles around his pupils that gives him a fittingly deranged look.
- Trickcal: Haley has circles for her iris/pupils, which serves to highlight the PTSD that the retired Elven Army officer suffered from back when she was still in duty.
- Undertale: Mr. Sunshine, who only appears in the game's 10th anniversary promotional material, is a delusional manticore-like creature who believes that he is the actual Sun. If the player tells Mr. Sunshine otherwise, he yells at them to shut up while grimacing directly at the screen with concentric circle patterns in his eyes, which shows his tenuous grasp on reality.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: When Nagito Komaeda comes under fire during the first case for his suspicious behavior, he reveals his true personality — insane, obsessed with hope, and full of self-loathing — with a horrifying Slasher Smile that comes with black sclerae and rough, scribbled concentric circles that almost converge on each other. Hajime, the protagonist, describes it as "layers upon layers of darkness [...] folding into each other".
Web Animation
- Mega Pokémon Battle Royale: Mega Salamence, Mega Gyarados, Mega Garchomp, and Mega Aerodactyl are all drawn with rippling red and black concentric circles in their eyes after their transformations, reflecting how each of them are more violent because the Mega Stones' power takes a toll on their sanity. Mega Pinsir's eyes also become black and yellow concentric circles, which represents Pinsir's manic euphoria at gaining the ability to fly.
- Nightmare City: In Requiem, when Morala steals the weapon abilities of his fallen minions, he is not able to handle them at their full power. While already a Blood Knight, the power-up leaves him crazed with the desire to fight Giko, and his eyes have grey concentric circles highlighting his unhinged madness.
Western Animation
- Big City Greens: In the episode "Chipocalypse Now", Chip Whistler's eyes turn into red and white concentric circles as he prepares to mow down Cricket with his helicopter's blades, indicating that he's gone off the deep end and is now willing to outright murder the Greens.
- Captain Flamingo:
- In "Flowers and Candy", as a result of his ongoing sugary addiction as a result of eating a piece of candy for the first time, Owen's eyes becomes spiring green and pink concentric circles throughout, highlighting his crazy, candy-consuming madness.
- Tabitha also gains these same colored spiring eyes in "Catch of the Day", over her having trouble turning on her computer that she needed to use for her report (as she claimed that it is broken), causing her to freak out. Fortunately, the Captain finds out that she just have forgot to turn it on, which solved her problem... sort of.
- DuckTales (1987): Robotica gains these in her eyes when she goes full Yandere over Gizmo Duck. Even more apparent after Gizmo Duck dumps her.
- DuckTales (2017): Jim Starling starts developing these as he slips further into madness after being recast for the Darkwing Duck movie, culminating in him becoming the show's equivalent to Negaduck.
- Hazbin Hotel: Vox, one of the series' villains, has a red left eye capable of turning into red and black concentric circles (which most often happens when he's angry or is being menacing), and its pattern is a recurring motif in plenty of his properties, mainly television and digital screens. He can use his left eye to brainwash Sinners of a lower power level than him, and any Sinners brainwashed by him have their eyes change to match the pattern of Vox's left eye. Vox is an Ax-Crazy and egomaniacal person through and through, having been a Serial Killer during his life on Earth, and in Hell, he seeks to become a revered god-like figure by both swaying all the Sinners' loyalty to him and brutally conquering Heaven, all while desperately trying to also outdo his Arch-Enemy Alastor.
- Played with in Rugrats. In "Reptar On Ice", when the babies need to hide a lizard that they found from the adults (believing it to be Reptar's Baby), Tommy and Chuckie both take turns hiding the lizard in their diapers, which causes them to make funny faces and fidget around. During which, Tommy and Chuckie briefly sport circles around their pupils while squirming around.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- During the musical number in "Enchanted Tiki Dreams", Squidward declares he's crazy, removing his sunglasses to show circles around his pupils.
- In "Earworm", SpongeBob develops these eyes during his Sanity Slippage over a catchy song.
- In "My Father the Boat", Pearl briefly has spiral eyes when she goes mad with her newfound driving skills (really Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob controlling the boat from under the hood).