"If all else fails, though, just look to the eyes and the universal language of cartoons: X means dead."
For animated characters, the eyes are the windows to the soul—literally. So literally, that their eyes become their innermost thoughts projected in very clear symbols for all to see.
Some common eye symbols:
- X or +: Dead or asleep without dreaming. Comical depictions of corpses or ghosts will have their tongues sticking out as well as this. Sometimes, both eyes will combine into a single, longways X. May also be a feature in depictions of clowns.
- Spirals: Dazed, confused, terrified, dizzy, or knocked out (See also Mind-Control Eyes). Often accompanied with Circling Birdies.
- Currency signs, usually dollar ($), yen (¥), pound (£), or euro (€): Greedy. Often accompanied with a cash register sound. Can also just be used as a sign of shock at discovering or seeing truly incredible amounts of money.
- Hearts: Lovesickness. Or — depending on what you're reading — an orgasm.
- Daggers/Fire: Extreme anger and/or intent to kill someone for something unforgivable. Fire could also be used for passion.
- No Sale: Used in western cartoons after a blow to the head.note TILT can be used if the character's a robot.note
- Stars: Excitement, determination, or dreaming of fame and fortune. See also: Sparkling Eyes of Excitement.
- Circles around pupils and nothing else: shock, insanity, or rage. Frequently used by American comic strips.
- Deep shaded irises with no pupils to speak of: Drugged or under mind control. The character is being forced to act against their will; alternately, it can mean despair. Spinning swirls often convey a similar effect.
- Inverted hashtags: Brief moments of intense emotion (of any kind), exertion, or pain.
- Upside-down U's: "Yay" moments. They could also indicate that the character is Happy, Joyous, or Blissed. Right-side-up U's can indicate sleeping. Used mostly in anime, but has fallen mostly out of favor by now.
- Copies of an item the character is looking at: Impressed, or wants the item.
- 3 or ε: The character isn't wearing the glasses they normally wear and can't see without them
This trope is named for Wingdings, a "dingbat" typeface created by Microsoft which comes pre-installed on most modern personal computers, consisting of assorted symbols.
Compare Glowing Eyes, Fireball Eyeballs, Hellish Pupils, Henohenomoheji, Reflective Eyes, and Mind-Control Eyes. If a character's pupils are an odd shape normally, you're dealing with Exotic Eye Designs. If the eyes change color depending on mood, that's Living Mood Ring.
Examples:
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Advertising
- There was a commercial for sport shoes with Don King (or a lookalike). When an athlete who didn't want to make commercial stuff finally sort of agrees, King's eyes turn into... guess what.
- MetLife: When Lucy hears that Linus could make thousands of dollars with a mutual fund, she gets dollar signs in her eyes.
- In both animated commercials from the Mexican anti-drug campaign Vive Sin Drogas, the boy's eyes turn into X's, one larger than the other, when he dies from a drug overdose.
- At least three Jack in the Box commercials feature this:
- The company mascot Jack had X-eyes after being knocked out by an oncoming bus for the first two commercials of the "Hang In There Jack" campaign.
- In this commercial
, Jack has spiral eyes from being anesthetized by a dentist.
Anime and Manga
- Maya from Ace Attorney (2016) briefly gets excited star-eyes when looking at a naughty magazine.
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Deserted Island Diary: In "Feel our Passion, K.K. Slider!", everyone on the island puts on a performance to lure K.K. Slider to their island. When Tom Nook says that they just need one more push, all the performers are too exhausted, with Coroyuki having swirls in his eyes.
- In Area no Kishi, the spiral type is sported by protagonist Kakeru after his Handsome Lech teammate Kouta puts him through several wrestling holds trying to find out more about Kakeru's childhood friend, Seven.
- Downplayed as the second chapter of Asteroid in Love is adapted as part of the first episode. When Ao gets overwhelmed by Mira's messages, exclamation marks are drawn over her eyes with a layer of transparency filter.
- A somewhat stealthy example in Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri once ended up staring dumbfounded at Suzu's bare chest. While his pupils don't look blatantly out of the ordinary, closer examination shows they're drawn exactly like nipples.
- At the cliffhanger of episode 1 of The Big O, arcane symbols appear in Dorothy's eyes as she looks up at her Humongous Mecha "sister" Dorothy One. It's possible the mecha was somehow taking control of her (since she's next seen wired into it), but it's not really clear.
- Black Clover: Asta's eyes turn into sparkles when he gets excited about something. Julius Novachrono as well whenever he sees cool magic.
- In Black★Rock Shooter, whenever a character is being affected by their "Otherself", their irises become gear-shaped.
- Bleach: The time skip leading to The Lost Agent Arc reveals that Orihime has practiced making face gags; Orihime can now make her eyes look like the number 3.
- In Cells at Work!, bacteria and other infections get X eyes when they are killed.
- Misaki Shokuhou in A Certain Scientific Railgun is known as the Queen of Tokiwadai and possesses mind control powers. Those under her powers usually (but not always) display small stars in their eyes. Her own eyes have massive stars in them and when Misaka finally calls her out on her appearance she says she was just born like that. For a while, fans speculated that the blonde girl we see was just another puppet of the real Misaki, but it seems not.
- Occurs in several Doraemon stories, either in the manga, anime or movies.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King notably have Doraemon making four of these in two seconds◊.
- Another famous example is Nobita's 3/ε shaped eyes when he isn't wearing his glasses. That shape became so iconic that it is sometimes called "Nobita eyes".
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King notably have Doraemon making four of these in two seconds
- Galaxy Angel: In one episode, Ranpha's eyes turn into male units upon first meeting a male android. A nude male android.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers:
- When visiting Japan, America's eyes turned into spirals when he saw how small a large order of fries was.
- Germany's eyes once turned into stars when a ninja randomly appeared in a movie.
- I Am a High School Boy, but I Got Gender-Swapped Into a Gyaru has Jun gets spiral eyes whenever they’re too embarrassed or overstimulated by the other gyarus.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In Stone Ocean, Yo-Yo Ma's eyes turn into hearts after developing an attraction towards frogs.
- Kamichama Karin often uses spiral eyes to show confusion.
- In the Kingdom Hearts manga some of the characters will get the X-eyes when they get knocked out. Especially we will see them most on more cartoony characters like Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, or Pete. But also the humans for example Sora, Roxas, Olette, or Aladdin will get those X-eyes when they get attacked by an enemy or get knocked out.
- Although it happens a few times, this also happens to Kirby in this episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! where, in one scene, Kirby tries to unsuccessfully jump over the rope, thus getting hit in the face, getting the + type in the process.
- Lucky Star: Characters' eyes are known to display themselves as hashtags, vertical lines, or tiny rings around white. Sometimes, they can become a sideways X, too.
- Subaru of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS expresses her great appreciation for good ice cream by having her eyes turn into sparkly hearts. After Hayate first summons the Wolkenritter in a flashback in the sixth episode of A's and faints from the shock, her eyes turn into spirals by the time Vita approaches her.
- March Comes in Like a Lion: When Momo meets Nikaidou for the first time while mistaking him for one of her beloved cartoon characters, Bodoro, her irises are filled with flower symbols as she's introducing herself, reflecting her excitement.
- My Hero Academia: Mei Hatsume's eyes look like reticles: probably a quirk of her Quirk (Zoom, which lets her focus on things in the distance).
- Mysterious Joker makes use of this trope. Whenever Hachi or Joker are particularly happy about something, usually a MacGuffin, their eyes take on this appearance.
- Negi Springfield in Negima! Magister Negi Magi gets the Spirals version when he's knocked out by a flying door, as shown on YouTube here at about 2:40.
- Similar to the comic example below, Mako from Nerima Daikon Brothers has heart-shaped reflections in her sunglasses.
- Episode 5 of Nurse Witch Komugi features the heroine with the yen sign in her eyes.
- One Piece:
- Nami's eyes occasionally change to the symbol for Beri when there's a potential profit to be made, Sanji's eyes change to hearts whenever he's swooning over one of the girls, and in one chapter Luffy's eyes changed to takoyaki to show just how much he craved the food. And recently he seems to have expanded to meat eyes.
- Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper are also especially prone to starbursts when they see something sufficiently awesome. When Luffy heard of Chopper's seven transformation power, even his Speech Bubbles got sparkly.
- The characters even point this out sometimes!
- If a character shows angular spirals, it tends to mean the character is not of sound mind. Such as in Alabasta when Luffy ate something he shouldn't have and started angrily lashing out at everything he saw.
- The Reverie arc has a mild but cute example: when Vivi correctly guessed Luffy had saved Dressrosa, Rebecca teared up so much, her eyes turned into puddle shapes.
- When the Straw Hats entered Wano via Luffy grabbing onto two giant carps to climb a giant waterfall, Carrot was so excited that her eyes turned into stars.
- The PaRappa the Rapper anime has a ton of these. Also, since some of the characters have a few of those, the main character, known as the rapping dog who always believes, gets those a lot of times, Once per Episode. It can also be a running gag also in some episodes.
- Pokémon the Series:
- Spirals = KO. Otherwise, they're probably down but not out. Pokémon as well humans will often get those spiral eyes, especially in later seasons.
- Sometimes they'll get X-eyes when they get knocked out or shocked, although this was more used in the early seasons, before the spiral eyes are prominently shown for defeated Pokémon. For the humans, X-eyes are usually used when someone is comically beaten up; as such, they are commonly seen on James.
- Also, heart eyes are used in the anime, sometimes when a Pokemon is hit by Attract. There are also fire-eyes, star-eyes, you name them.
- Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl introduced an open + symbol to denote the Sleep status.
- Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon had one occasion as a reference; when Ash’s Rowlet gets the idea to find a replacement for Meltan’s stolen nut, its eyes turn into Game Freak logos (complete with a star as portrayed when the Game Freak logo appears in some of the Pokémon games), and while that occurs, a Nintendo Game Boy also appears above Rowlet’s head.
- Pokémon movies, on the other hand, tend to drop this after the first couple minutes in favor of more serious effects.
- Pretty Cure gets at least one moment per season, usually in relation to food:
- Futari wa Pretty Cure: Mepple gets X eyes when Nagisa shakes his commune like crazy.
- Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star: Saki gets starry eyes while gazing at a chocolate cake.
- Fresh Pretty Cure!: Love gets sparkle eyes when she's presented with the opportunity to be a model.
- HeartCatch Pretty Cure!: Erika gets sparkle eyes when the mascots tell her she's their best friend.
- Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Dodori is frequently drawn with sparkle eyes, however in group shots with all the other Fairy Tones, he has regular eyes.
- Smile PreCure!: Cure Peace gets sparkle eyes when she's presented with a bowling challenge.
- Doki Doki! PreCure: In Episode 4, Cure Heart gets spiral eyes when she gets carsick.
- HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: Megumi gets heart eyes when she first meets Blue.
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: Yui gets sparkle eyes when she tries Ibuki's dorayaki.
- Maho Girls PreCure!: Mofurun is typically drawn with starry eyes.
- KiraKira★Precure à la Mode: Ichika gets sparkle eyes when her cream puffs are finally ready.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Hana gets starry eyes while praising Homare's skills.
- Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Elena's little siblings get sparkle eyes while watching Fuwa eat a donut.
- Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Nodoka gets heart eyes when she eats some delicious food.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: Manatsu and Sango get sparkle eyes when they try Asuka's food.
- Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Pam-Pam and Rosemary both get starry eyes when they try some delicious takoyaki.
- Soaring Sky! PreCure: Mashiro gets starry eyes when showing off the Shiny Powder Fragrance.
- Wonderful Pretty Cure!: In Episode 3, Iroha gets sparkle eyes when she sees the entirety of the Niko Garden.
- Lilie from Princess Tutu often gets hearts in her eyes◊ when Ahiru does something she deems 'cute'.
- Star Detective Pretty Cure!: Cure Eclair gets knocked out swirly eyes as a Necessary Drawback from her Sparkle Time, a move that greatly enhances her speed and agility but causes temporary strain to her body and forces her to cool down.
- Rurouni Kenshin has our main hero get swirly-eyed in the more lighthearted scenes.
- Happens in Sailor Moon on many occasions, most noticeable with the Heart Eyes Usagi displays when meeting Tuxedo Mask and then again when seeing Rei for the first time.
- Sakura no Ichiban!: Asami has swirls in her eyes in the first chapter when she gets knocked out by the guys kidnapping her and Misao.
- SD Gundam Force, being the more humorous Gundam series, has the characters making these sort of eyes when the moment requires. In one episode, Captain Gundam gets an upgrade with the ability to create these at will, because he wanted to make facial expressions.
- One panel of Sgt. Frog featured Keroro with a yen symbol in one eye and an American dollar sign in the other. Giroro's eyes sometimes go up in actual flames.
- In one episode of the anime, Momoka's eyes have little flames in them as she thinks of her determination to get close to Fuyuki on an upcoming trip, which then turn to little rainclouds when he mentions it might rain.
- On the merchandise side, a sticker book of Wingding Eyes for all the model kits has been released.
- Slayers: The last episode in Slayers Next when Gourry and Lina reappear hugging after disappearing into the Sea of Chaos and Lina clocks Gourry, giving him the X-eyes.
- All the humanoid aliens in Space Pirate Mito have starbursts for pupils. Aoi, who is half-alien, half-human, has one normal pupil and one starburst.
- Super Milk Chan will often have yen signs appear in her eyes in slot-machine style whenever the topic of making money comes up; other, oddball symbols have been known to appear as well.
- Tamagotchi Friends and Tamagotchi!:
- Nine times out of ten, Himespetchi's eyes will turn into red-colored hearts at the climax of her daydreams about her crush, Mametchi. It often coincides with her saying her catchphrase "giga crush/giga hearts/giga love/gigakyun"note .
- In Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream episode 28, the design of a female crab prop made to lure a larger male crab out of a garage invokes this as a design choice, having red-pink hearts drawn on its eyes for pupils.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Extremely high levels of blood heat are indicated by spirals in the characters' pupils.
- One fairly unique example of this trope occurs late in the series when Kittan's eyes momentarily transform into stars upon seeing the giant stars on Yoko's latest outfit. Guess where they are.
- Simon demonstrates the "insanity/rage" eyes — pupils with nothing but empty circles around them — for a few episodes following Kamina's death.
- The "Spiral eyes" are, like a significant portion of Gurren Lagann, a reference to Getter Robo, where one of the signs of a human being supercharged by Getter Rays was their irises becoming spirals.
- Dropkick on My Devil: Spiral eyes, blank eyes etc. appear very often. However, the spiral eyes could be used a lot.
- Onegai My Melody: Spiral eyes (Also seen in both Sukkiri and Kuru Kuru Shuffle openings) mostly appear in the show along with the blank eyes.
- In one chapter of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Yugi curses a TV producer to expose his greed on television, and the producer gets the kanji for "greed" in his eyes (the translated version by Viz Media uses yen signs).
Arts
- Michelangelo’s David: Potentially the Ur-Example, the eyes of the statue have heart-shaped pupils.
- Isle of the Dead: One of the larger monks on the right side has the most pronounced amount of swirls in its eyes with black scleras. This symbolizes the World Gone Mad they all live in.
Asian Animation
- Akis: In "Talent Show", the girl performing in the talent show has X's for eyes when she faints from Akis shocking her.
- It's common in Happy Friends for characters' eyes to become certain symbols in a given situation, such as spiral eyes when they are dazed or heart-shaped eyes when they fall in love (the latter is especially true for Doctor H. when he's around Miss Peach).
- Kaun Banega Superstar:
- The moon lady's eyes briefly display hearts in "Bajata Rahoon" as she admires a singer on her tablet.
- The moon lady's dog shows hearts for her eyes when she falls in love with another dog (actually Blue Star tricking her into believing he's a dog).
- Lamput:
- In one episode, Specs Doc's eyes become X's when Skinny Doc hits him with a bat, mistaking him for Lamput since he accidentally covered himself in orange paint.
- There are several episodes that have "heart eyes = in love". In "Orange Rose", Lamput admires a woman on the bus and has heart-shaped eyes; in "Doc Dog", the docs' dog has heart-shaped eyes after he sees Lamput, who has transformed into a feminine dog; and in both episodes called "Wig", Specs Doc has heart-shaped eyes around Skinny Doc when he mistakes him for a female due to Lamput masquerading as a feminine wig on his head.
- Mechamato: Rubika's eyes turn into a question mark when Mechamato's missile attack seems surprisingly underwhelming.
- Motu Patlu (2012): In a New Years 2019 commercial, Motu's eyes turn into hearts.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: In the first episode of Mr.Wolffy, Mr.Right!, Wolffy has hearts in his eyes when he sees a girl that he loves.
Comic Books
- Aggretsuko Meet Her Friends: Retsuko's story in the first issue depicts the yoga instructor getting heart-eyed upon noticing his crush early on.
- Billy Dogma creator Dean Haspiel does a twist on this: Billy's girlfriend often has heart-shaped reflections on her sunglasses.
- Condorito and related comics use swirly eyes for lunatics, whether they are in a madhouse or whether the punchline that reveals them as loonies has just been delivered...
- The Department of Truth: The Scarlet Woman, who often appears in connection with conspiracies, usually wears dark sunglasses, but is shown to have big black X's for eyes when they're removed.
- Emilka Sza: Whenever titular character Emilka is fame-struck, her eyes turn into stars while she walks around smiling in almost a "sleepwalking like" trance.
- Green Lantern often shows people with Lantern Corps symbols in their eyes when strongly feeling the corresponding emotion (the Green Lantern symbol when channelling Heroic Willpower, Red Lantern symbol when consumed by rage, etc.)
- Stormer from Jem and the Holograms (IDW) got hearts in her eyes when she saw her girlfriend Kimber dressed up in a cute shark costume during a Halloween party.
- Last of the Sandwalkers: When Raef suddenly remembers that Professor Bombardier's real name is Beatrice, he stares into her eyes as the reflection in his eyes (and antenna) form the shape of hearts.
- Mdga Man gets stars in his eyes in Mega Man (Archie Comics) when Hard Man punches him in the face.
- Several times in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), notably:
- Rarity gets a watch-shaped eye, accompanied by a few gears popping out, at the sudden appearance of the spiders in issue #2.
- When Twilight and AJ are fighting over leadership in #2, AJ gets a dagger in hers, and Twilight a grenade.
- At the very end, Spike has heart eyes when meeting up with Rarity, as usual.
- In Sonic the Comic Super Sonic has Spiral eyes which make him look even more psychotic. (They're actually repeating circles, not spirals, but the effect is much the same.)
- Tangle the Lemur from the Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics often gets stars in her eyes when she is excited.
- The Spectre is occasionally depicted with skulls for irises for dramatic effect, often when he's inflicting Cruel and Unusual Death.
- Superman:
- In Supergirl story Bizarrogirl, a newspaper depicts the Girl of Steel after being curbstomped by Godship with "x"'s for eyes to show that she's knocked out.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: In Mordru the Merciless, the face of Mordru replace the Lana Lang's irises when the old, evil sorcerer takes over her body.
- The Superman Adventures: The X-for-dead variation appears in short story "While You Were Sleeping", in which Luthor is dreaming of finally killing Superman.
- Parodied in The Unbelievable Gwenpool. When Gwen learns how much she'll make for taking a job, she pulls out a marker and physically draws dollar signs on the lenses of her mask, to the consternation of her tailor.
- This is enforced by Executive Meddling in the Warrior Cats comics. Too much violence is not allowed, so prey animals are depicted perfectly intact with "x"'s for eyes to show that they're dead.
- In the 111 issue of W.I.T.C.H., the characters Will Vandom and Martin Tubbs will both get the X-Eyes. Will gets hit by a soccer ball in her face and Martin will get kicked around by Uriah.
- Wonder Woman: In Wonder Woman (1942) story arc Judgment in Infinity, the Adjudicator's eyes look like multi-faceted, multicolored crystals.
- In Emilka Sza When Emily is starstruck, she spends several pages with stars for her eyes (even her hair is shaped like a star at points). She also gets heart-eyes and heart hair whenever she is in love.
Comic Strips
- Beetle Bailey: Though apparently just eyes is not enough.
- Spirals and such have been spotted.
- In one strip, the characters notice that a passed-out character's eyes really do turn into X's, even though they say that's supposed to only happen in comics.
- Chip Gizmo has once been spending too much time on the computer, as evidenced by his right eye having turned into a :), left eye into a @, and mouth into ----.
- Cosmo has Wingding Ears, as seen in one strip — fitting his personality, from close up, his ears contain a dollar sign (instead of the slightly similar squiggle usually drawn inside ears).
- Both Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield use a rather western-centric technique of putting rings around their beady eyes as a shorthand for rage or insanity.
- FoxTrot:
- Jason has had dollar signs in his glasses.
Jason: iPods cost $299?! And people pay that?!
Peter: Why do you have little dollar signs in your eyes?
Jason: It's, um, just dirt. Do you know where Mom hid my soldering iron? - Parodied in one strip where we see Jason with a number of odd symbols, before going to harass his sister Paige ("Your ugliness...it's mesmerizing!" he says with spirals in his eyes). Paige yells at him to stop drawing on his glasses.
- One strip had Peter's eyes turn into "A+++" when he gets teamed up with Morton Goldthwait on a school project.
- Jason has had dollar signs
- The women in the Norwegian comic "M" all have stars instead of eyes. The author says this is because it's harder to read the mood of women. Other explanations include mixing pills with alcohol.
- My Cage: Apparently in this universe, such pupils are medical conditions. When Maureen learns her date makes 500K a year, her eyes bug out with dollar signs, and she has to be taken to the emergency room for treatment.
- Good old Charlie Brown from Peanuts had these too, of course.
- One distinctive Peanuts example was using commas instead of full stop eyes to indicate eye-rolling reactions or sarcasm.
- A weird Don Martin variation in "One Day in the Park" (MAD #119, June 1968): a hippie and a "straight" are sitting on a park bench, with the hippie looking through a kaleidoscope and grooving on it ("Wow! Crazy! Fantastic!"). The annoyed straight yanks the 'scope away and looks through it— "Just as I thought! Nothing but an empty tube! THIS IS NO KALEIDOSCOPE!". The last panel is a close up of the hippie's face as he asks what a kaleidoscope is, with his eyes forming mandala-like patterns. (Can be seen on this Facebook page.)
Fan Works
- Aftermath and Recovery: Mikey gets highlights in his eyes when he has the idea to call Draxum for backup medical advice.
- Aki-chan's Life (sequel to The Second Try): This scene where Shinji and Misato are blinded by a camera's flash and their eyes turn into tiny spirals.
- Evangelion 303: Here, when Asuka learns Jessika likes Rammstein. Her eyes turn into giant hearts.
- Fairy Friends:
- In "Spoiled Sweet," the eyes of the Skippy Cheese's Pizza Place manager turn into giant green dollar signs after Trixie and her mother tell him that they want to buy the establishment for $58 million. At the end of the chapter, Jermaine's eyes turn into red hearts when Trixie kisses him on the cheek as thanks for him standing up for her and Veronica against Chad and Tad.
- In "Sharing is Caring," Vicky's eyes transform into skulls and crossbones when she shoots Jermaine, Trixie, and Veronica a Death Glare as they sit down at the table for Tootie's birthday party. Later on in the chapter, Tootie's eyes turn into red hearts after Jermaine takes her hand to lead her to city hall so she can open her many gifts. At the end of the chapter, Tootie's eyes turn into red hearts again when Jermaine takes her in his arms and kisses her on the cheek.
- At the end of "Night Life," Jermaine's eyes turn into red hearts again after Tootie and Trixie kiss him on the cheeks while they're in a photo booth at the dance.
- Hazbin Hotel — All I Want For Christmas Is You: When Sir Pentious is shown lying bloodied on the ground after being run over, one of his eyes has an X in it, and the other eye and the eye on his hat have swirls in them.
- My Hero Playthrough:
- In chapter 5, Izuku sees the kanji 孫note is his mom's eyes after he tells her Tsuyu wants to practice swimming with him. Alone. In the forest.
- In chapter 15, Izuku sees the kanji 肉note in the study group's (six of his female classmates) eyes when he enters the room. Including invisible Hagakure.
- Move Aside, Make Way for Ultra Despair: In the opening of Chapter 2, Mike Flood and Joe Sparkes get sparkle eyes when they first see the inventing garage.
- Naru-Hina Chronicles:
- Naruto has star-shaped eyes while drooling and thinking about the Hinata-shaped cookies that his girlfriend made for him in Chapter 9.
- At the hospital, Naruto is drooling and has star-shaped eyes when he promises to stop sneaking out of his room if Sakura brings him ramen.
- Hinata has heart-shaped eyes when she tells Kakashi what would Naruto have done to not make her worry without telling her something about his ANBU training.
- Her inner-self also has heart-shaped eyes while gushing over how Naruto is "SO COMMANDING" in Chapter 75.
- Naruto has spiral-shaped eyes after Hiashi violently shook him when the Hyuga Clan head assumed that Hinata was pregnant (which he assumed only because he learned about Naruto and Hinata being engaged).
- Ayame has heart-shaped eyes when she thinks about her ideal type of boyfriend.
- Kiba has swirly eyes after landing right next to Mina. This happened after Hinata punched him into the sky when he accidentally grabbed her left breast instead of her left hand.
- In Chapter 96, the baby fox (later known as Kosuke) has swirly eyes when Naruto holds him in his arms and tries to apologize for attacking him.
- Lee has swirly eyes after getting punched in the face by Arekusu while they are sparring.
- Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: All Might isn't sure if the stars in Izuku's eyes are showing up out of admiration or a side effect of his Kryptonian Super-Vision.
- Of The Earthling Saiyan:
- The Forgotten Past of The Earthling Saiyan:
- Kakarot is described as having swirls replace his eyes as he's lying on the floor dazed after trying to research the Crown of Restraint.
- Kakarot has swirls in his eyes after hearing Tarble explain the Multiverse Theory.
- The Bewitchment of The Earthling Saiyan: Goten has swirls in his eyes after he hits his head by running too fast inside the ship and accidentally running into a wall.
- The Forgotten Past of The Earthling Saiyan:
- Platinum Pirate: Robin, of all people, takes on a starry-eyed look when she first sees Giratina's Origin Forme in Chapter 21, temporarily flabbergasting everyone present.
- Pokémon Untamed:
- Flitjitter have irises divided into wobbly concentric rings, representing their constant caffeine high and lack of mental focus.
- Rustache's eyes are depicted as sparkling in a star-like shape as it digs up an entire ingot of gold.
- Rocky Road (Animal Crossing): Kid Cat ends up with spiral eyes after he tries (and fails) to break a rock that Suter was trying to smash with an elbow drop.
- The Ultimate Test: Jermaine and Sissy's eyes transform into red hearts during their Held Gaze after their Accidental Hand-Hold moment while having a Valentine's Day movie marathon at his house.
Films — Animation
- Aladdin (1992, Disney): Jafar sports ripple rings outside his pupils within his eyes at the end of his Prince Ali Reprise, particularly during his frightening Evil Laugh while the background turns deep red.
- In All Dogs Go to Heaven, Charlie's pupils become dollar signs—complete with a "cha-ching!"—when he realizes how much money he can make betting on animal races by having Anne-Marie talk to the animal participants.
- In The Aristocats, Edgar gets dollar signs in his eyes when plotting the cats' demise.
- The audio commentary to Disney's Beauty and the Beast notes that Gaston has skulls visible in his eyes as the camera zooms in on his face while he's falling to his death. (It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment — try going through the scene frame-by-frame.)
- Cats Don't Dance:
- Darla Dimple is so infuriated at the animals trying to get attention that her eyes fill with fire and (cat) Skull and Crossbones at the same time.
- Earlier, when Danny's offered the chance to be in a film with the above-mentioned Dimple, he gets stars in his eyes (pun not intended).
- In the Dot and the Kangaroo sequel, Dot and the Whale, this is played with as, at one point, Dot is depicted with dolphins swimming around her pupils.
- The Emperor's New Groove: Kuzco's pupils are replaced with tiny spirals to signal that he is going "Oh, Crap!" when he sees that the hole he has gotten his head stuck in is full of bats who don't look happy.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox has several variations. Kylie The opossum has spiral eyes when he zones out. Dogs and humans get asterisks for pupils when they eat drugged blueberries. The dead poultry have their eyes X'd out.
- At the end of Ice Age: The Meltdown, Scrat's pupils become acorns for a moment when he sees the giant acorn in his acorn heaven.
- Inside Out 2: Envy has humongous puppy dog-like eyes which get multiple sparkles in them whenever she is fascinated over something.
- KPop Demon Hunters, both Mira and Zoey's eyes turn into hearts when they see the Saja Boys. It's more pronounced with Zoey during scenes where she's really falling for them, and her eyes turn into either corn or popcorn.
- In The LEGO Movie, Vitruvius gets Xs in his eyes after he dies.
- Monsters University: When the belief that human children are toxic creatures that can kill monsters with a mere touch is first mentioned, the viewers are shown a picture with a child doing it and the monster having X-shaped eyes.
- Rocket Saves the Day:
- The Pest briefly gets spiral eyes after knocking its head against a drum.
- When Rocket offers a bone biscuit as payment for the How to Stop the Letter Pest book, Mr. Barker's eyes widen and display shimmering copies of it.
- In Turning Red, when Meilin Lee and her friends get the idea to make money off Mei's panda form after seeing how popular it is at school, they all get blue dollar signs for pupils.
- In Dingo Pictures productions such as Wabuu, the Cheeky Raccoon, characters sometimes "shut" their pupils to horizontal slits while their eyelids remain open.
Films — Live-Action
- In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell's eyes burst into flame when his hair is insulted.
- This is repeated in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues when Ron gets angered again. This time, in his eyes is shown a man screaming, which could possibly be one of the contestants from the cock fight that he went to with his son, Walter.
- In A Christmas Story, when Ralphie fantasizes about defending his family from a band of clearly delineated bad guys with his official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, said villains end up with X's drawn over their eyes after they're dispatched.
- In Heart Eyes the killer's mask has heart-shaped eyes.
- A Running Gag in Hot Rod, where the titular pseudo-daredevil will "summon" the essence of some animal, followed by an image of said animal appearing in each iris.
- Discussed sarcastically by Saunders in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, saying that while her eyes used to be "big blue question marks, now they're big green dollar marks."
- In Velvet Goldmine, when Brian Slade and his manager Jerry Devine discuss a collaboration project with Curt Wild and Curt responds not only favorably but flirtatiously, we zoom in on Brian's eyes to see pink hearts, then zoom in on Jerry's to see green dollar signs.
- In Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- Judge Doom's eyes literally stare daggers. And not get daggers in them mind, they actually extend from his skull and get pointy! They also display spiraling swirls, starbursts, etc. in brilliant red and yellow. Shudder.
- Also from this film, Lena Hyena demonstrates the "heart eyes" variation.
- As does Roger, while watching Eddie and Dolores about to kiss.
- After getting knocked out by Jessica, Roger has X eyes.
Literature
- In the Dragonlance book, Raistlin's pupils are hourglass-shaped.
- Doom Valley Prep School: The personification of Fate has dice for eyes.
- Earth's Scariest Monsters!: In "Saturday Morning Fever," Jermaine's eyes become swirls as he falls into a Saturday morning-induced trance after inhaling large amounts of breakfast food and watching his favorite episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! in Saturnos' realm in the Ghost World.
- House of Robots: Robots Go Wild!: E has swirl eyes during most of the illustrations of his rampage.
- Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse: Lilly's eyes turn into orange spirals when she's really mad about Mr. Slinger confiscating her purse.
- Max & the Midknights: Anyone who gets knocked out has their eyes replaced with plus signs.
- A lot older than you might think: The "Medieval Housebook", a manuscript from ca. 1480, features the "X eyes = dead" variant for a horse in one picture◊ (at the bottom).
- A plot point in Moving Pictures, where eyes are windows of the soul. Those touched by the "Holy Wood" bug have actual stars in their eyes, a small golden star in each pupil.
- Samurai Santa: When the snowball war is over, some of the Snowlems have Xs in their eyes.
- All the animals that pile upon the title character's antlers in Dr. Seuss' Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose (which he breaks off for some approaching hunters who mount them upon a wall) end up with the fate of plus-eyes, all still perched upon them and "stuffed, as they should be".
- Time To: When the blonde girl in "Time to Say, 'Please!'" wants a cookie, her eyes turn into cookies.
- Toon-Up: Ajay Kumar's eyes turn into giant green dollar signs when his parents tell him how much money they got from the lawsuit they filed against the school for his disappearance.
Live-Action TV
- Becker: When Becker is incredulous that his girlfriend Megan is more eccentric than he can tell himself, he introduced her to Regi and Jake. After a brief conversation with her, Jake remarks that although he couldn't see her due to his blindness he imagined her with "pinwheel eyes and a cuckoo coming out of her forehead".
- The Basil Brush Show: Dave gets pound-sign pupils in one episode when Anil mentions he'll give anything to have his plumbing fixed.
- Referenced by Jack in Midnight Caller: "I've heard so much about money lately, I could puke. You know, multi-million dollar ballplayers, multi-million dollar business deals... What the hell is wrong with this country? It's like everybody's wearing contact lenses shaped like dollar bills or something."
- In many episodes of The Monkees, whenever lovesick Davy locks eyes with a beautiful girl, both he (the Chick Magnet) and the girl get starry-eyed.
- The dollar sign version happens in an episode of Mr. Show with several characters (including a firefighter after seeing a burning house), as part of one of the show's many "links" that connect the sketches.
- Penn & Teller did a card trick on the Today Show and revealed the chosen card by having Teller open his eyes wearing scleral shells that appeared to replace his pupils with a 3 and a club. They repeated the trick on Hollywood Squares, during the infamous "You Fool!" episode.
- "No Sale" eyes were used in the "boxing" episode of Police Squad!.
- Usagi got these in the fourth episode of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Despite being Live-Action, it was well done since the heart she displayed in her eyes looked like reflection in the same way that certain types of lighting give circular reflection in the eyes, but heart-shaped.
- In the Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) episode "Five Easy Pieces of Libby", both Hilda and Zelda show dollar signs in their eyes when they realize how profitable Zelda's cleaning formula is.
Music
- The oddly titled "Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But..." by the Arctic Monkeys, advocating art for art's sake:
Well I ain't got no dollar signs in my eyes
It might be a surprise but it's true - Billy Talent's anti-consumerism song "Pocketful of Dreams" contains the line "Still when I look into your eyes they're full of dollar signs".
- Lupe Fiasco's character "The Streets" constantly has glowing green dollar signs in her eyes. "The Game" has glowing red dice.
- Primal Scream - "Swastika Eyes". A reference to Weimar Republic political cartoonists who drew Nazis with swastika Wingding Eyes.
- Nirvana's logo has the X-eyes version.
- Pepe Deluxé's ''Go Supersonic" video uses X-eyes for death. Glowing, neon X-eyes.
- Referenced in the lyrics for "Rhythm Section Want Ad" by They Might Be Giants:
For every one with dollar signs in his eyes
There must be hundreds that look at you as if you're some kind of
Rhythm section want ad - The original design for deadmau5' Mau5head (seen on the cover of Get Scraped) featured X-eyes. This was abandoned for most subsequent incarnations.
Pinballs
- Some of the partygoers in The Party Zone have spirals in their eyes.
- One of the beach party attendees in Miami in Red & Ted's Road Show is a man with spirals in his eyes.
Puppet Shows
- In Muppet Treasure Island, upon discovering Billy Bones' treasure map, Gonzo gets dollar signs in his eyes as he says "We're gonna be rich!" Meanwhile, the nervous Rizzo has X-eyes as he says "We're gonna be dead."
- In the Sesame Street sketch Beginning, Middle, and End, which is one of many sketches animated by Sally Cruikshank, when Seymour gets on a pterodactyl who acts like a taxicab, his neighbor Mrs. Bazini gets X's in her eyes from hitting the side of her head with a trash can lid due to complete and utter shock of witnessing it right next to her backyard.
Theatre
- In The Complete History Of America Abridged, Abraham Lincoln's Bunraku puppet head has its eyes X'ed out when it gets struck by John Wilkes Booth's bullet. Its mouth changes to a squiggle at the same time.
Toys
- Alternate versions of the iDog exist that turned its normally circular LEDs into stars and hearts, known as the "Happy Version" and the "Lovely Version" respectively.
Video Games
- Ace Attorney:
- In the opening cutscene of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Athena and Widget get swirly eyes after Athena trips and falls down a staircase.
- In the first case of the same game, Juniper Woods' "damage" animation has her pull her pigtails so hard that they snap back and deck her in the eyes, leaving Xs.
- A Dummied Out sprite for the first game shows Phoenix with heart eyes. This was originally used to show his reaction to seeing April May for the first time in court, but after the script was rewritten so that Phoenix first meets April in an investigation segment, where the player character's sprite isn't visible, the sprite went unused as there was no need for it anymore.
- Still regarding Phoenix, his eyes turn into a large X whenever he sneezes in the first case of Trial and Tribulations.
- ANNO: Mutationem: In the Mysterious Console DLC, when the black-hooded enemies are defeated in combat, their eyes become huge Xs as they collapse to the ground.
- Platinum the Trinity of BlazBlue has naturally heart-shaped pupils. They go away whenever the Trinity personality takes over. Hilariously, her eyes can also turn into different things such as actual hearts when she's in love with something, as well as X's when she's lying on her back after being knocked down by certain attacks.
- Bomberman commonly uses these, because his eyes are the -only- facial feature on his computer screen-like face.
- Bound by Blades has a giant cyclops thing, Skullako, as a boss, and his single eye turns into an "X" if you damage him enough. None of the other bosses have this animation.
- Brain Dead 13 uses this in the final scene. Fritz gets so angry that he uses this as a slot machine to think of the many methods to kill Lance, including a high-heeled shoe, until finally, the word "Jackpot" appears, in which Fritz unleashes ALL of the weapons he has at Lance.
- The Bubble Bobble games have a unique exaggerated variant of + eyes: characters' eyes get crossed out by a literal black line. In Bubble Memories, a sequel, dying player-characters end up with Blank White Eyes instead.
- In Chulip, the protagonist gets X's in his eyes whenever he gets hurt...and with Everything Trying to Kill You, this is quite often.
- Claws of Furry: The rat Mooks' eyes will turn into Xs upon defeat. defeated hamster ball enemies will gain Xs in their eyes. Also, if you lose a level, your Cat Ninja will have Xs in their eyes in the level result screen.
- Conker's Bad Fur Day:
- Whenever Conker gets one of the cash prizes, dollar signs scroll across his eyes like reels on a slot machine.
- In one part of the game, Conker has to drink a large amount of beer so he will be able to urinate on fire-covered demons that are trying to kill him. After he drinks the beer, a fuel gauge appears in his eyes, with the pointer going from empty to full.
- Cooking Mama gets stars in her eyes when you succeed at a task, and they become flame if you should miss one of her instructions. "Don't worry! Mama will fix it!"
- Ripper Roo from Crash Bandicoot , depending on the game in the series, has the swirling spiral variety or circles around the pupils to show his mental instability and Ax-Craziness. Although as Dr. Roo, he has normal eyes hidden underneath his glasses.
- Many characters use these in Cuphead. For example, at the beginning of the game, Cuphead's eyes show dollar signs when he plays the dice game against Mugman's warning, unaware that the dice turn out to be snake eyes. All of Hilda Berg's constellation forms have stars for pupils (this extends to her second-phase Game Over card). Djimmi the Great blows out some smoke that forms a teacup with X's for eyes and a frowning mouth at the beginning of the fight. And finally, the Devil casts a Death Glare on Cuphead and Mugman at the beginning of the final battle when his pupil turns into a cup getting cleaved into mincepottery; in the second phase, he weaponizes an axe and a flying bomb from his pupil (sometimes pink-colored and easy to parry).
- Danganronpa:
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: When the Mastermind eventually appears, several images show said mastermind with spiral eyes, apparently as a signifier of the lunatic obsession with despair that drives their actions.
- In the sequel, Komaeda Nagito gets them once or twice due to a parallel fanatical obsession with hope.
- Disgaea: Princess Sapphire has naturally star shaped pupils. Flonne's eyes occasionally change to flames whenever she gets fired up.
- Donkey Kong Bananza has DK's pupils change into bananas whenever he sees anything banana-shaped and -colored, whether it be Banandium Gems or Void Kong's banana-shaped remote control.
- Friday Night Funkin':
- The little icons on the UI bar gain Xs for eyes when their side of the bar nears the edge - the exceptions to this are The Girlfriend, The Father, and The Senpai, who don't have lose icons, and Monster, who instead has an X for one pupil and a circle around the other.
- The girls in the background of Week 6 have hearts for eyes to indicate how head over heels they are for The Senpai.
- Gaia Online has a series of glasses accessories that have this effect on your avatar. The track-invading Yaoi Fangirl from the '08 Olympics had a pair with swirlies, if I remember correctly.
- An equally absurd example comes from the later levels of zOMG! There your character is, at the bottom of the ocean looking for the Big Bad's lair, when you notice a heap of apparent rocks has an eye in it. An eye bigger than your avatar. And it blinks. And every time it blinks, its pupil changes shape. And nobody on either the zOMG! forum or the GCD knows what it is, aside from weird.
- The Hidden Ace evolving item has four pairs of eyes with pupils shaped after card suits — diamond, heart, spade, and club.
- Glam: Glam's eyes will turn into Xs upon death.
- From the opening of the Arcade Game Go! Go! Mile Smile:
Fairy: If you can rescue the young and beautiful princess, you will get a great reward.
Mile: [dollar signs in eyes] Reward!!
Yard: [Heart Symbols in eyes] A beautiful princess!!- Yard's eyes also become hearts in the ending when he meets the princess that he and Mile just saved. Too bad the princess doesn’t like men, as she knocks Yard away.
- In the video game version of Gregory Horror Show, when Roulette Boy's game starts, Gregory and The Guest (either male or female) will land, and after that, The Guest's eyes become X's while Gregory's eyes becomes dizzied without any wingding eyes.
- Also, when landing on the return space, The Guest will get the same X eyes like at the beginning of Roulette Boy's game.
- The Guest will also get the X eyes when they land on an Event space and get a harmful event.
- Finley from Hustle Cat gets literal stars in her eyes when she is excited, frequently about something adorable that another character is doing.
- Island Saver:
- The bank machine and recycling machines both display heart eyes when the player deposits the respective items in them.
- The recycling machines will also do X-eyes if they are full.
- The spiral eyes show up quite often in The Legendary Starfy series, and Starly gets the heart eyes in the fourth game. Moe also gets heart eyes when interacting with Ruby.
- Some of the costume items in LittleBigPlanet are like this, such as the Dizzy Eyes, which actually spin around while being swirly.
- Love & Pies: Several characters tend to become heart-eyed when they're in love:
- When Joe and Amelia are having a romantic moment, they get hearts in their eyes.
- Yuka gets heart-eyed in her Date Dash Event whenever you receive a reward from her.
- Joe's brother Sam gets heart-eyed whenever he tries flirting with Amelia.
- In Love, Ghostie, Beep0 flashes heart eyes whenever they're in love.
- Lemina in Lunar: Eternal Blue has the dollar sign version any time she makes money off something, or is thinking of a way to do so.
- The Maid of Fairewell Heights: Marshmallow's eyes turn into hearts when in her car, saying:
Mmm! This wind feels great!
- In Mega Man 11, Bounce Man's eyes will turn into X's if he is hit by the Pile Driver.
- Miitomo: When speaking about love or moolah, the Mii's eyes are turned respectively into hearts and coins.
- Miitopia: The Miis’ eyes turn into hearts upon their relationship level reaching Level 30 or higher, or if the Pop Star uses Love Song on them.
- When you lose in Minesweeper, the Yellowface's eyes become little X's.
- Neptunia:
- When a CPU or a CPU Candidate activates their HDD mode, their pupils are replaced with power symbols during the transformation.
- Among other eyeball oddities, the character MarvelousAQL from the Rebirth remakes has musical note-shaped pupils.
- When a CPU or a CPU Candidate activates their HDD mode, their pupils are replaced with power symbols
- Persona 5: The eyes on Funny Animal Morgana will turn into yellow, four-pointed stars whenever he starts plotting something.
- Pizza Tower: A few dead or stunned enemies such as Pizza Box Goblin display X-shaped eyes. Rideable zombies also display X-shaped eyes.
- Spinda of the Pokémon series naturally have spiral eyes, which are meant to tie in with their tottering, confusing movements. Other examples include Chinchou's plus sign eyes, Wynaut's carets, and Whismur's plus sign. Many Pokémon have dot or line eyes too.
- Starting in Last Specter, Professor Layton introduces Hanna, the devoted (and only) fangirl of Inspector Grosky. The mere mention of his name turns her eyes into hearts
- In the Puyo Puyo series, some of the characters like Amitie or Arle Nadja will get the X-eyes when they lose a game while some get the spiral eyes.
- River City Girls: River City Girls Character Spotlight - Kyoko has a pan up on her face that shows her with Heart Symbol outlines for pupils.
- Romance Academy: After a boy is hypnotized with Eye Beams into being the protagonist’s worshipful admirer, he gains pink heart-shaped eyes and floats behind her to follow her everywhere.
- Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Bone Fish when stunned, have swirls for eyes.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- In a couple of scenes in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Amy Rose gets hearts in her eyes in Sonic's presence, particularly before she's kidnapped by Metal Sonic and when she hugs Sonic after he rescues her.
- Team Chaotix in Sonic Heroes get the $ eyes since they care about money. Espio doesn't get this trope as he is suspicious about the payment promised.
- When attacked with Sonic special move Dizzy Spin in Sonic the Fighters, characters will become just that; Dizzy. Cue the spiral eyes and falling on their backs.
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: After Strong Bad gives Homestar a Tap on the Head, Homestar's eyes become X's as he falls over.
- Claude Trilleo from Sunrider occasionally gets hearts in her eyes when she’s feeling particularly... amorous towards Kayto Shields.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario 64: When Mario dies or gets burned by fire/lava, his eyes become Xs.
- Super Mario Sunshine: In the game's intro, Mario gets hearts in his eyes when the advertisement in the plane shows a bounty of food.
- Super Mario Odyssey: The Tostarenans have different-shaped glowing eyes depending on their mood, such as pink flowers when happy and yellow starbusts when hurt.
- Mario Party 2: There is a 1-vs-3 minigame called "Look Away". When the characters lose this minigame, their heads will shrink, spin and disappear in the background. Also, their eyes will change to show their defeat. Mario for instance will get the X-eyes, Luigi and Wario get Blank White Eyes, Donkey Kong and Yoshi will get spiral-eyes and Princess Peach will have black spirals instead of pupils in her eyes.
- In Mario Kart: Double Dash!! some characters like Yoshi, Birdo, Koopa, and Paratroopa will get X-eyes when they get hit by an item or get their kart backflipped by a Blue Shell, Bob-Omb, or Bomb-Car.
- In Mario Power Tennis, during a cut scene, Princess Peach blows a kiss to Mario and Luigi, and their eyes become heart-shaped.
- Super Smash Bros.:
- In the original Super Smash Bros. 64, when Kirby is dazed, he becomes swirly-eyed.
- This was dropped in later games. However, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U does this to another character in the form of Pikachu; when Pikachu is dazed, it becomes swirly-eyed.
- In Ultimate, the swirly-eyes got carried over, and with Pichu added to the mix, Pichu also gets swirly-eyes similar to Pikachu when it is dazed. Pichu also becomes swirly-eyed briefly when it does its third taunt where it charges electricity similar to Pikachu. Pichu also briefly becomes swirly-eyed during one of its victory animations, though it quickly recovers and winks.
- In Tavern Talk, Archie gets starry-eyed whenever he gets fascinated by something.
- In Them's Fightin' Herds, predator mooks will have spirals for eyes when hit and defeated. The playable characters will also have spiral eyes in their defeated portrait and on their overworld sprite when beaten.
- As of the 3.0 update, if Paprika KO's Tianhuo with her Level 3 Super, Tianhuo's pupils will turn into Xs for two frames, then her eyes become spirals.
- Dead units in Totally Accurate Battle Simulator will have X eyes when they die. Otherwise, they walk around with googly eyes rolling in their heads.
- Cirno from Touhou Project is occasionally depicted with 9-balls in her eyes.
- Trails Series:
- The The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake loves these. Estelle often gets wide white pupil-less eyes when shocked or surprised by something. If you complete the optional battle with Duke Dunan and the soldiers without defeating the Duke, he will back up against a wall and knock himself out, getting spiral eyes.
- Trails of Cold Steel normally has a realistic art style, but Millium's eyes change to > < when she gets excited, and to blank white circles when she is puzzled. Roselia gets the same treatment in the fourth game.
- The iconic character Wrench from Watch_Dogs 2 has a full-face mask that animates his eyes on an LED matrix, matching the reactions of the character himself in real time.
- The Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod Vs Whitty has Whitty absolutely snapping by song 3, with his eyes turning into crosses, X's, triangles, and circles in rapid sequence to demonstrate how he's out of his mind with pure rage.
- Wario's eyes have dollar signs in the intro to most WarioWare games whenever he stumbles upon a new money-making scheme. Except for WarioWare: Snapped! in which coins are in Wario's eyes rather than the dollar signs, and WarioWare: Smooth Moves, in which the dollar signs did not appear at all.
- In one of the World Heroes Arcade endings, Janne gets heart-eyed. Use this link, and go to 1:40 of the video to view it.
- In one of the FMVs for Worms 2, a lone worm plays with a slot machine until three dynamite pictures line up. Thinking he won, dollar signs appear in his eyes until he hears the sound of fuse burning and the dollar signs becomes question marks... at which point he realizes that the slot machine is dropping out lit sticks of dynamite instead of money. Cue screaming and a truly massive explosion.
Visual Novels
- The Freak Circus: Pierrot's eyes can change size and shape. They often turn into the shape of hearts when he's speaking to the protagonist.
Web Animation
- The Academy of Magic: Dezi finds her first class so disorienting that she leaves with swirly eyes.
- The Amazing Digital Circus:
- "Pilot": When Pomni goes through her original panic attack, her pupils turn into chaotic scribbles.
- "They All Get Guns": Jax's pupils become spirals after Caine imparts the instructions directly into his head. He also gains scribbly pupils during his panic attack in the bathroom, similar to Pomni in the first episode.
- Word of God claims (jokingly) that when Kaufmo holds his breath, his eyes turn into X's.
- Anna-Logue: The titular protagonist has her eyes turn into crosses upon getting beaned on the head by the spawning flowers in the house. After the house explodes and she and the plants fly out, she gets beaned on the head by a yellow flower seconds after landing with the red flower, getting spiral eyes.
- AoHaru Manga Library: This is usually the eyes of the antagonistic Gold Digger, once they realize Keiichi has risen to a higher position surpassing the antagonistic rival, will be replaced with yen signs. This is to cue in their true money-grubbing nature that they're just interested in mooching off him as an ATM.
- The Father Tucker short "Death Do Us Part" has Father Tucker's pupils turn into Stars of David when he ogles at a Jewish boy.
- In Happy Tree Friends:
- In "Mime to Five", after finally getting enough money to buy the unicycle he wants, Mime gets the dollar sign version followed by a version with unicycles.
- In "We're Scrooged!", Lumpy gets the dollar sign version. The annotated version says he should really see a doctor about that.
- In "I Nub You", Petunia gets the heart version.
- MGT School:
- Rasta has heart eyes in "My New Helper!" when Seira walks by.
- Akira has spiral eyes in "No Pain, No Gain" after wearing herself out doing training.
- Minilife TV: In "A New Terror Arrives", after Baby Crotchrash causes a car crash between Wilkins and Jack, an unconscious Jack has X's for eyes, which is lampshaded by Wilkins.
- Murder Drones: The Worker Drones can change how their eyes (which normally look like simple ovals on their visors) look to display different emotions, such as spirals for dizziness. The series' titular Murder Drones get the long-ways X to display hostility or aggression.
- Vivi from Mystery Skulls Animated gets excited stars in her eyes when she sees that the mansion she just entered is unquestionably haunted.
- Puyo Puyo Happy!!:
- In the first episode, Suketoudara's eyes become spirals when Arin and Ralph make him dizzy, and X's when he faints.
- In episode 2, Arin's and Ralph's eyes turn into yellow, four-pointed stars when they get the idea to stick things onto Suketoudara.
- In the RWBY episodes "The Shining Beacon (Part 1)" and "Players and Pieces", Ruby gets the spiral version.
- The Watchmen parody "Saturday Morning Watchmen" shows the Comedian having the heart version... for Silk Spectre II.
- Yahtzee's avatar on Zero Punctuation will get the inverted-U eyes on the rare occasion where he's actually enjoying some aspect of a game.
- In Samurai Girl Fight when she has lost almost all of her clothes. Once the side of her thong gets cut, her eyes turns to swirls as she quickly crouches down to cover her crotch from view.
Webcomics
- In Ava's Demon, Ava's spirit, while she bleeds out, has x-ed out eyes.
- Bobwhite: "I'm... networking." *stars*
- The dollar-sign variation is exaggerated in this Cyanide and Happiness comic.
- The very first page of Digger finds the titular character tunneling around dazed and swirly-eyed, thinking she was a small stone named Edward.
- Mentioned, but not shown, in several Dinosaur Comics strips, such as here, here and here (in the Alt Text).
- El Goonish Shive:
- Everyday Heroes:
- A spiral-and-star combo express pain and disorientation in this episode. The same effect was used by old MAD artist Jack Davis.
- Blank ovals to represent shock are used here.
- A spiral-and-star combo express pain and disorientation in this episode
- Fillbert:
- Characters' eyes sometimes become Ʌs or > <.
- Parodied when Vivi and Willow are horrified by their eyes becoming hearts.
- Freefall:
- Sam is faking death but still got the X's, thanks to them actually being part of an animatronic mask concealing his face from others.
- There's also the terraforming robot Sawtooth Rivergrinder, whose eyes are actual displays.
- Sam is faking death but still got the X's, thanks to them actually being part of an animatronic mask concealing
- In Girly, taking a cat that ate some Lethal Chef produce to the vet's:
Vet: How do his eyes look?
Otra: Well... They were swirly, last I checked... Wait. They're stars now. - The Handbook of Heroes: From "Hit Dice", a dead Wizard has X-es for eyes.
- Appears a few times in Homestuck:
- Karkat's pupils become spades (in-universe, the hate-based equivalent of the <3 symbol) the first time he sees John, indicating his Hate At First Sight.
- Then you get Vriska's eight pupils about Nicolas Cage...
- Later, for reasons that make perfect sense, Karkat gets buckets in his eyes.
- In [S] Collide Clover's pupils flash between hearts, stars, and horseshoes, for Karkat (part of an even stranger romance system).
- Used occasionally in The KAMics, with X-eyes being the most common.
- In this strip of Kevin & Kell, while George is negotiating a business deal with Steve Lops, his eyes are dollar signs. Then, Steve's assistant Zerda arrives, and George's eyes very suddenly become hearts. The punchline is about eyestrain.
- From Luke Surl: "Of course with the novelty contact lens addiction I haven't had a job or a girlfriend in years."
- Ménage à 3 uses this a lot, often when a female touches Gary in any way, but also in other situations, as here. Note that hearts can indicate physical lust as much as lovesickness in this comic — Senna, in that example, is no sort of romantic.
- My Delirium Alcazar: Yolk!Cici has one eye always like that, turning into different emojis reflecting her mood. So far we have seen:
- Boat◊ - swimming
- Lab flask◊ - experimenting
- Magnifying glass◊ - investigating
- Question mark◊ - curious
- Shield◊ - protective
- Smiley face◊ - happy
- Sword◊ - attacking
- Boat
- NEXT!!! Sound of the Future:
- In chapter 5.1, when Shine realizes that she has no idea how to be an idol, there is a closeup of her face where she has spirals in her eyes.
- At the end of chapter 5.2, Gumiya's embarrassment at how he complimented Shine so much in their previous conversation that it came just short of being a Love Confession is demonstrated by the spirals in his eyes.
- The Order of the Stick:
- The discerning reader soon learns that any particular person is dead when they see the Xs in the person's eyes; it distinguishes death from unconsciousness.
- The characters know that Roy Greenhilt is dead when they see the Xs.
- Later, Celia draws X's over Belkar's and Haley's eyes to pass them for dead.
- The swirly eyes variant is lampshaded in another, earlier strip, and subsequently fairly often used to indicate mind control.
Roy: I think Vaarsuvius has hypnotized the dragon.
Belkar: Why do you say that?
Roy: Well, the dragon's got swirly eyes.
- When the nerdy aardvark Stephan from Ozy and Millie goes into über-nerd mode, his glasses show things like dollar signs, clocks or whatever is appropriate in that situation.
- A new variation in Penny and Aggie. The principal announces that Calvin Machrie will coach the theater team. The reactions of three students are... see for yourself.
- Frequent in Persona 4TW, especially with spirals and X's.
- Pocket Princesses: In #115, Tiana gets heart eyes at the sight of the massive summer harvest.
- The Princess's Jewels: As a part of the webcomic's anime aesthetic, peoples' eyes turn into hearts when they see someone they become enamoured with, like Princess Ariana, or Raymond in episode 7.
- Mentioned in Questionable Content:
- Faye says she has dollar signs dancing in her eyes now that she only has to pay a third of the rent. Dora tells her her medical doesn't cover "cashtigmatism".
- Dora mentions it herself when the shop gets a good review in the local paper. Marten jokes he thought it was due to novelty contact lenses.
- Dora actually gets them when she gloats that she's not only got a new business model selling hot tea for robots to smell, she can then sell it to humans as iced tea the following day.
- The Rifters: Carnby gets this briefly when he first meets Jo.
- When the Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky! rerun website concluded the actual run of It's Walky! and moved on to It's Walky! $100 Theater, the banner was changed to show SEMME with dollar signs in their eyes.
- Scalie Schoolie: In this strip, Geraldine gets dollar sign eyes when Iris offers her a bribe.
Geraldine: Well I do like money!
Calli: I can tell! You've got dollar signs for eyes!
Geraldine: That is an unrelated medical condition, and I'd appreciate if you didn't draw attention to it. - Lampshaded in Sharp Zero when Kate yells at Elliot and her pupils turn into flaming skulls.
Madina: How did you do that with your eyes?
- Sleepless Domain: It's more subtle than this trope usually is, but characters' pupils will occasionally take the shape of certain symbols to reflect the character's mood. In particular, Kokoro is frequently seen with heart-shaped pupils (usually when she's around Undine), while Mingxing gains star-shaped pupils on one occasion. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, this usually ties into the characters' magical girl identities — Kokoro is the magical girl Heartful Punch, while Mingxing was formerly Starlight Spear.
- Lampshaded in Sluggy Freelance. Not only does Torg freak out when he sees dollar signs appear in the realtor's eyes, but then the realtor also complains while rubbing them that it hurts every time it happens.
- Ultimax member Holly has her eyes turn into hearts when she sees Silver's hologram of Tails in Sonic the Comic – Online! story "Silver Landing".
- Sticky Dilly Buns: Ruby suffers a classic attack of dollar signs when she suddenly remembers her business training in the middle of a conversation about Yaoi and morality.
- Strange School: After The Big Damn Kiss, the kissed has Cardiovascular Love-type Heart Symbol pupils.
- Trying Human: Hue will occasionally sport hearts, stars, or other symbols reflected in his eyes to emphasize his mood.
- Twin Dragons: Whenever Kaya is very excited (which happens often), she gets literally starry-eyed.
- Unfamiliar uses this a lot, such as when Planchette's eyes look like fried eggs when she talks about breakfast. Babs, a siren, has heart shapes in her eyes. This is a hallmark of Haley Newsome's style.
- Waterworks: "he can't be dead! his eyes aren't X's! finish him off!" The character so commanded does, at which point the unconscious victim's eyes turn from one large X into two small X's.
- A variation in Weak Hero where Big Data's glasses shift while calculating data. First numbers scroll down them à la The Matrix, and then "Calculation complete: print results" appears with a tick.
- Welcome to the pharmacy!: Jessica thinks new hire Elena is so cute and innocent when they are introduced, that Jessica’s eyes briefly turn into stars.
- In the works of Jamie Barker:
- The spiral variation has been seen on both Blip and Twink from Chillzoo after each stares at a computer monitor for too long.
- In the 2024 revival of Fake Gamer Girl, Jamie's clown-like avatar has X-eyes.
- The spiral variation has been seen on both Blip and Twink from Chillzoo
Web Original
- For Sesame Street's 40th anniversary, the Google logo has been different for each day. This one◊ has Elmo on it... It seems they were attempting that Anime "Upside-down U" look on him, but... though it looks a lot more like Kermit The Frog's eyes. Maybe that's what they were shooting for?
- This simulator for predicting circumstellar habitable zones has a model planet (icy, wet, or bone dry depending if it's too far from its sun, in the habitable zone, or too close, respectively), which develops a face with X's for eyes when the simulation has it ceasing to exist.
Web Videos
- Bronies React: In the episode for the Season 5 Finale of MLP:FIM, when Deadpool shows up in Jaxblade's house (Makes Just as Much Sense in Context), he gets hearts over his eyes at the mention of My Little Pony, and then thin white stripes as he leaves, dejected.
- Screen Rant Pitch Meetings had in the episode for The Mandalorian the Executive getting dollar sign eyes upon hearing about Baby Yoda. It doesn't go unnoticed by the Executive and the Writer, with the former leaving to diagnose what caused that to appear (it was simply a love of money, given how much of a merchandise opportunity Grogu was).
Real Life
- In the Macintosh "Sad Mac" error message, the icon's eyes form an "X", which means that your computer has crashed. The Google Chrome "Sad Tab" error is a homage to this.
- Unsurprisingly, there are novelty contact lenses out there that let you achieve this effect.
- The stock Emoji available on most smartphones include smiley faces with heart eyes for love, with dollar eyes for greed, and with x eyes for shock.