Relegated mainly to lighter anime, the visible sigh is a little white cloud that appears near and moves away from the mouth or nose of a person sighing. It's used to symbolize heavy breathing after exertion and some cases where the onomatopoeia "phew!" is used in English. It also tends to emit from someone's mouth when they eat or swallow something, and when coming from the nose, it sometimes expresses a smug feeling. The cloud itself is usually circular with a small "stem" that points toward the character emitting it.
Possibly based on the phenomenon of visible breath encountered in weather of sufficiently low temperature and high humidity.
In many works, the cloud will be compacted, resembling a mushroom.
May be present as Cathartic Exhalation.
Sub-Trope of Gestures of Annoyance.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fullmetal Alchemist (pictured above). Travis Willingham, Roy Mustang's voice actor, once made a comment on this at a convention ("Ed just burped out a mushroom!").
- Kirby does this when he lands after floating, and can hit enemies with it.
- He also gets one in an episode of the anime series, shaped like an apple.
- Pokémon the Series features this kind of sigh a lot, including by Pokémon, mostly Pikachu when he's forced to play Team Dad to younger Pokémon.
- Pretty Cure:
- Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Hummy does one after eating the cupcakes that Hibiki and Kanade gave her.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: Laura heaves one after Manatsu and Sango prevent a curious Minori from discovering she's not a statue.
- Sailor Moon Luna especially is fond of doing this when Serena/Usagi has a facepalm -worthy moment.
- Rukawa Kaede in Slam Dunk does this all the time, especially when confronted by rival Sakuragi Hanamichi.
- There she is!!, when Nabi sees that Doki's cake is unscratched.
- Lucky Star uses this, but there it's more like a speech "bubble" cloud.
- In Pita-Ten, Misha sees Takashi sighing complete with a little cloud. She then mentions the Japanese saying that some of your "happiness" escapes whenever you sigh. When this causes Takashi to sigh again, Misha grabs the cloud saying she can see the happiness getting away.
- In Soul Eater Not!, any time a character is full of his or herself, they might sigh a cloud through their nose.
- Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun: After Aoyama cleans the class' windows, the board, and his desk, he becomes so tired his sigh can be seen as a little cloud.
- Sonic X: Doctor Eggman does this once in episode 30 "Heads Up, Tails!".
Asian Animation
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, it's not uncommon for little clouds to form near a character's mouth when they sigh.
- Happy Friends often features little breath clouds when characters sigh.
Video Games
- Done by a few villagers in the Animal Crossing series. Starting with Wild World, you can learn to do it yourself from Doctor Shrunk.
- Kirby exhales after he's been using his flight abilities, and the cloud can hurt enemies. Whispy Woods, Gooey, and King Dedede do this, too.
- The original Bubble Bobble arcade game while the player character gets incinerated by an electric bolt by a Space Invader.
- Touhou Genso Wanderer -Lotus Labyrinth-: One of Sanae's Idle Animations has her puff a white breath symbol before relaxing.
- The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-: Hiruko and Shouma both have sprites where they do this. For Hiruko, it's usually to convey some sense of resigned annoyance, whilst for Shouma, he has two featuring this, one used as a sad sigh as he spouts his typical self-deprication, and the other which is more mushroom-shaped and is used as a sigh of relief.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: Nanase lets out one
as a Cathartic Exhalation.
- Friday 4 Koma: Orange gives a visual sigh in the third panel.
- Gunnerkrigg Court, Kat in Chapter 35, then Annie in Chapter 36 when discovering she didn't mess up the rest of Red's life by accident. For extra expression, supplied with the closed eyes and a weak smile.
- Medic Pics: The author gives one after completely exhausting his social battery (after a singular conversation in a library.)
- Tapiseri Soujourn: Soujourn lets out a visible sigh while discussing with Daedalus what she needs from him.
- Toki no Tanaka: Himiko gives one of these in page 12.
Western Animation
- Due to its Animesque nature, Teen Titans is fond of using this, particularly with Raven.
- My Little Pony: Pony Life uses this as well, being a Denser and Wackier Spin-Off of Friendship Is Magic.
- Friendship is Magic has an instance too (though not in the classic shape), when Twilight sighs out of relief due to Applejack finally accepting her friends' help in the episode Applebuck Season.