Hellish Pupils / Anime & Manga

Examples of Hellish Pupils in anime and manga.

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• When Yakumo from 3×3 Eyes draws power from Amara, his eyes become completely white with no pupils at all, along with some other demonic changes. Benares, who otherwise looks like a normal if large human, always has deep red eyes with reptilian pupils. Yoko Ayanokoji and Yakumo sports the same eyes when they're temporarily possessed by him.
• After God: Waka's and IPO's pupils are triangular.
• Berserk: Guts gets these when he's in his standard action kill-kill-kill mode, which are merely his irises drawn in scribbled detail (its the Blank White Eyes or Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises that you need to really look out for). Griffith, on the other hand, has piercing white slitted irises when he is in his Godhand form that is Femto. It makes his Kubrick Stare all the more terrifying.

• The title heroine of Birdy the Mighty is depicted with reptile or cat-like eyes, though with more focus on them in the remake manga as they're a sign her genetics came from Atlan Emperor Etania.
• Black Butler:
  • When Sebastian is acting especially demonic, his eyes are a dark shade of pink/pinkish red and his pupils are slits
  • Also, In episode 12 of Season 2 Ciel also gets turned into a demon, and is shown a few times with eyes similar to Sebastian's.
• Train Heartnet from Black Cat sports a cat's slit eyes, although it seems to highlight his feline features more than it makes him evil. When the slits become especially pronounced, however, bad things start to happen. He manages to scare an entire squad of bodyguards into submission just by walking past them with these eyes.
• Bleach:
  • Ichigo Kurosaki does this whenever his inner Hollow is about to take over, changing the color of his irises to yellow, and the color of his eyeballs to black, with a half mask to boot. Later in the series, he gains the ability to Hollowfy at will, making the aforementioned changes to his eyes and assuming the full mask, altering his voice as well.
  • Ulquiorra Cifer's pupils are slitted. When he activates his second sword release and transforms, the sclera of his eyes change from white to dark green and his green irises become yellow. In this form, his pupils are still slitted.
  • Yhwach, Arc Villain of the final arc, gains two extra pupils in each eye when using The Almighty.
• Subverted with Bloody Monday's Fujimaru and his dad, whose Hellish Pupils show up when they're about to do something heroically badass.
• Subverted/played as a variant of Magical Eye in the manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV. In this 'verse, Hellish Pupils are seen as Dragon Eyes, signs that the bearer is of great destiny and possessed with Psychic Powers of being a Seer of the future not to mention being a Physical God. (This even extends to a summoner-character developing Hellish Pupils when voluntarily possessed by Cool Big Sis Deis.)
• All of the demons in Chrono Crusade have these (of course), but some are more evil than others — in fact, the title character (Chrono) has them, and he's one of the good guys.
• The half-yoma fighters in Claymore have eyes that are normally silver — these turn into gold eyes with slitted pupils once they start to tap into their yoma power.
• D.Gray-Man:
  • When the not-quite-a-vampire Arystar Krory drinks the blood of an Akuma, his hair stands up and his eyes get this black veiny sunken look to them. He is a good guy, though.
  • Allen Walker has a cursed eye, which goes black with concentric red rings when he spots an Akuma.
  • Beside having goden eyes in his noah form like all Noah, the earl of Millennium has slitted pupils.
    • Major spoiler ahead Allen Walker in his Noah form too. This serves as a Foreshadowing that the memory inside Allen is that of half the Millennium earl Hellish indeed.
• Only sort of an example (as the character is clearly not human), but Ryuk from Death Note has red pupils. (Another shinigami, Rem, has the classic gold-eyes-slit-pupils.) A clearer example is any character who makes the shinigami eyes trade, who have demonic red pupils.
• The aptly named Oculus in Death Parade has big black eyes with a green slit for a pupil that narrows depending on his mood. While not technically a villain, he is one of the more antagonistic characters in the series and definitely the most mysterious.
• The Lunatic Magician from Delicious in Dungeon has creepy keyhole shaped pupils.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: The series loves experimenting with eye design, and nowhere is this more evident than its demons, who often have slits for pupils, but not always - others have X-shaped pupils, double pupils, and the Twelve Kizuki have numbers in one eye (with outcast Kizuki having it messily crossed out). Interestingly, Tamayo, a "free" demon who gets by on small amounts of blood and has devoted her life to healing rather than killing, has no pupils at all. Nezuko's eyes look relatively normal, if pink, when her human side is dominant, but when they turn into slits, she's about to make a mess.
• Digimon Tamers has Guilmon do this whenever he smells a Digimon. His normally round pupils go slitted and he starts growling. And it may be due only to their extremely strong bond, but the one time in the series that Takato lost his temper, his eyes underwent the same transformation.
• Dororo (2019): Hyakkimaru and Dororo have the same dark red eyes, but Hyakkimaru's eyes alternate between having slit demonic pupils when he is fighting and round human pupils when calm or emotional.

• All Dream Demons in Dream Eater Merry have eyes with pupils of nonstandard shape, which occasionally glow white. Merry herself has rectangular pupils like a sheep's.
• In Excel♡Saga, people from the lost civilization of Solaria have yellow cat eyes, a trait Il Palazzo, Doctor Kabapu, and Miwa Rengaya share.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Gajeel Redfox has slitted red eyes, like those of a lizard or dragon. Makes sense, since he's the Iron Dragon Slayer, was raised by a dragon, and is easily the most feral of the seven Dragon Slayers shown so far.
  • The Raijinshuu: Evergreen's and Bickslow's eyes glow underneath their Power Limiter, whereas Fried's sclera turn black with a glowing purple pupil.
  • Rogue has eyes identical to Gajeel's, though he is a calm if not somewhat overconfident person who gracefully accepts defeat and the idea that he may have overestimated himself, and shows kindness and consideration to others without even having to have Natsu beat the idea into him. The only design purpose they seem to serve is to make him look more like Gajeel.
• In Fate/Zero, Gilgamesh has red eyes with snake-like slit pupils. This is emphasized in an extreme close-up on one at the end of Episode 12, and the pupil dilates and contracts several times as he talks.
• In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the eyes of the Remnants of Sephiroth have catlike slits for pupils — as do those of Sephiroth himself, though less pronounced. When Cloud is suffering from a particularly intense spasm from the Geostigma disease, his eyes briefly turn like the Remnants'.
• In Fort of Apocalypse, the four juvenile delinquents encounter a giant mountain of rotting zombies controlled by an androgynous naked man on the top, using the zombies like a grotesque throne. When Maeda (the most innocent of the gang) catches its attention, said naked man (who was about a half-mile away) uses the zombies to move like a hideous organism at lightning speed, until it's only a foot in front of the terrified youth. A close-up reveals that it has Sharingan-like eyes, with three smaller eyes inhabiting each of its pupils.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Kyo is possessed by the Cat spirit of the Zodiac; thus, when he's angry or otherwise extremely emotional, his eyes become yellow and slitted. Played almost always for comedy in the anime, but the manga uses it half the time for dramatic effect.
  • In the manga, Yuki has a similar effect; on occasion, he's displayed something like the Rat's eyes, where his eyes lighten and his pupils disappear altogether.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Many of the Homunculi have these. In fact, you can note the contrast between human eyes and homunculus eyes in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) when Envy feeds Wrath incomplete Philosopher Stones.
    • It's not immediately obvious, because Ling usually has his eyes closed, but there is a noticeable difference between Ling's normal pupils when he's in control and his homunculus pupils when Greed is in control.
  • Kimblee, who is human but a complete psycho has creepy, reptilian eyes.
  • King Bradley a.k.a. Wrath has his Ouroboros mark on his left eye, covered by an eyepatch.

• Yomi, of Ga-Rei and the prequel anime Ga-Rei -Zero-, has slit pupils when corrupted by an evil stone. Either way, she's more of an Anti-Villain than anything else.
• GeGeGe no Kitarō has this in spades because let's face it, it's full of fucking youkai.
• Several different characters in Get Backers begin to reveal that they carry Stigma, their pupils forming a cross, which indicate that've surpassed mortal restrictions towards the end of the manga. Generally, characters use special contact lenses to hide this trait. When they remove the lens, however, even running away is generally not going to do much good. Other characters don't bother to hide it at all. Taken to its extreme by the Voodoo King, who has three eyes and has Stigma in all three of them.
• Sendo from Hajime no Ippo, tying in with his nickname 'the Naniwa Tiger', sometimes displays these, most prominently in chapter 1091 in his fight against the Mexican champion Nargo.
• In Hayate the Combat Butler Manga only, Hinagiku and Wataru. It might symbolize their aggressive personalities; as they're certainly not evil. Certain other characters get them when being sneaky/violent, but these two sometimes have them when not doing anything in particular. There is no meaning, yet. In the anime adaptation, the Superintendent and Wataru normally have the eyes, and Hinagiku can summon it when she gets really annoyed.
• Hell's Kitchen (2010): Dogma has cross-shaped pupils. Somewhat ironic when you consider that he's a demon.
• Alucard of Hellsing manifests slitted, cat-like pupils when using his Hypnotic Eyes in the manga. Recent chapters have shown Integra Hellsing's eyes like this in some panels, though whether this is a side-effect of keeping a fully powered Alucard under control or just a sign of being extremely pissed off is not addressed.
• Henkyou no Roukishi Bard Loen: Ven Uril is a mercenary with cat-pupils, though he's a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander.
• If someone's eyes do this in Higurashi: When They Cry, they're in big, big trouble. It means that whoever in that scene has normal eyes is hallucinating, and is about to go Ax-Crazy. If someone's eyes lack pupils, that's a sure sign of craziness or emotional brokenness.
• Inuyasha:
  • Inuyasha is a half-demon that has Supernatural Gold Eyes with slitted pupils. Considering what those tropes usually represent it is a little surprising that not only is he a good guy he's the hero. Now, if his pupils turn more slitted and blue and his sclera red, then we have a problem.
  • The same applies to Sesshoumaru. (This also gives a really good excuse to flee; you don't want to mess with an unbelievably large, powerful, angry, and regally fluffy dog demon lord.)
  • Many, if not most, bestial Youkai also have slitted eyes. And yes, that includes Shippo and Kirara.
  • Koga's eyes in fact have no pupils. By the time of his introduction, we've decided that if a character has not-round pupils, they ain't human.
• Vinegar Doppio from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind gains nightmarish black pupils with smaller black dots around them whenever his Diavolo persona takes over or influences his body.
• Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss has them. So does Mizuki, Sukuna and Akura-Ou.
• Karin, a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire from Karin (aka: Chibi-Vampire), usually has normal eyes. Whenever she gets stressed out, her pupils remain circles but also gain vertical slashes — a merge of human and catlike pupils in one package. Her eyes also apparently turn gold.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
  • Kisara has catlike eyes. Initially this depicts her as vicious, but a new light gets thrown on this with the discovery that she is actually a closet Kindhearted Cat Lover.
  • Aagard Jum Sai, the Muay Thai master of Yami, has asterisk-shaped pupils.
• Outright subverted in The Law of Ueki by the title character Kosuke Ueki, who has very narrow slit-like irises (possibly just pupils and no irises at all), and yet he's a very kind and just person. The same is true for his mentor Kobayashi... when his Scary Shiny Glasses aren't in full swing, that is.
• Motoko Aoyama's older sister, Tsuruko from Love Hina, gets demonic eyes with slit-like irises and black sclera right before doing something violent.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Bardiche used to have a slitted eye in its Power Crystal. When Fate switched sides, the eye is never seen again.
• Around half the characters in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, and almost any other show involving otherwise Badass Normals with some form of berserker ability.
• The Black Cloaked cultists in My-Otome get gold cat's eyes when they draw upon the power of the Slaves.
• Naruto:
  • Whenever Naruto begins using the Nine Tailed Fox's power, his eyes turn red and his pupils become slits. Real foxes actually do have eyes like this except they are orange, yellow, or brown instead of red.
  • Orochimaru has yellow eyes with slitted pupils to further the snake motif.
  • When Gaara's demonic side comes out, his eyes turn yellow, with pupils shaped along with the sand that envelops his body.
  • The Sharingan eyes, which are possessed by Sasuke, Itachi, Kakashi, and various other characters, and when activated are red and have three extra comma-shaped pupils surrounding the center.
  • Naruto again, when he completes the Sage mode, accompanied by "froggy" eyes with rectangular pupils.
    • Additionally: at one point, he uses both sage mode and fox chakra at once, and both kinds overlap with each other.
  • The series has plenty of these, with the Rinnegan, Orochimaru's eyes... actually, most of the Akatsuki seems to have strange eyes.
• A subversion of this can be found in Natsume's Book of Friends, where the protagonist has slitted eyes, but this indicates not that he's a nasty youkai but that he can see them. Played straight with some youkai, who also have slitted eyes and at least start off rather nasty.
• Used by Evangeline A.K. McDowell of Negima! Magister Negi Magi whenever she taps into her vampiric powers: the pupils slit, the sclera turns black and the iris starts to glow yellow.
• Noir:
  • Kirika's eyes become blank and soulless slits when her "other" personality awakens. In this case, her partner Mireille very clearly notices that something is wrong.
  • Chloe has similar, if only slightly softer eyes all the time, indicating how she is far more deeply and closely indoctrinated to her role as Noir, than either Kirika or Mireille.
• Arlong from One Piece, when angry, has bloodshot eyes resembling those of a Sea King that's about to attack. Not even Nami, who spent eight years forced to work under him, ever saw him this pissed off.
• PandoraHearts: Levi Baskerville has cat-like purple eyes with no sclera. The author admits the intention is for the readers find him creepy.
• Rokudou Mukuro of Reborn! (2004) has a red eye whose pupil is actually kanji that cycle from one to six, from the six realms concept in Buddhism. Each kanji represents a power derived from one of the realms...yes, including Hell. However, the one Mukuro believes to be the worst is the fifth realm, the one of humans.
• Rosario + Vampire:
  • Kiria. Bonus for them being different colored Hellish Pupils, specifically one vertical slit, one horizontal.
  • This is also a common trait among vampires, except Outer Moka (and even then, her Superpowered Evil Side has them).

• Demons in Saiyuki tend to have slitted pupils when not wearing Power Limiters.
• Xellos the Priest of Slayers has these, along with purple eyes. Naturally, they serve as a Red Right Hand to his true nature as a Monster, and he only shows them when he's being serious
• Soul Eater: Most of the villains have evil-looking eyes.
  • Arachne has spiderweb patterns on her eyeballs.
  • Medusa has snake-like eyes.
  • Asura has 'eyes' inside his eyes (more like vertical eye-shaped irises).
• The Blade Children in Spiral all have slit pupils (and crazy hair colours). They don't seem to actually exist, as the characters constantly talk about how the only way to identify one is their missing rib.
• Sukeban Deka: Remi Mizuchi, the Arch-Enemy of the heroine Saki, has creepy snake-like narrow pupils to reflect her perverted and diabolical nature, as well as her association with snakes.
• In Sugar Dark, the main character/prisoner/forced grave digger/former private Reed meets Raven, a young mischievous boy who was among the mysterious masked people who ordered him to bury one of the Eldritch Abominations and humanity's ancient enemy called the "Dark". He doesn't appear to notice (or perhaps not to further question - what with shit happening to him in such short intervals) that he has goat's eyes.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
  • Nia's cross-pupiled green-and-pink eyes are pretty freaky when you first see them, but still extremely cute. Until she gets More Than Mind Controlled by the bad guys, her eye colors change to something scarier, and she turns into a hot version of the Silver Surfer.
  • Viral also has Hellish Pupils, and he's a particularly Badass Longcoat in a series that runneth over with badass. Justified in that he's part cat-shark-man, so he has cat-like pupils.
  • Nia's father Lord Genome has spiral-shaped eyes, but this is less to show him as being evil (since he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist) and more to emphasise his badassery and mastery of Spiral Energy.

• The alien villains of Tokyo Mew Mew have slitted pupils to make them look creepy, in contrast to the heroic human characters who have normal eyes.
• Another not-really-human example: Arcueid from Tsukihime. Whenever she gets really, really angry, her Hypnotic Eyes turn Gold and slitted, at which point only the strongest of characters can fight back, or even move.
• Sumire from Venus Versus Virus has cross-shaped pupils along with Red Eyes, Take Warning while in her Berserker state.

• Used occasionally in Wandering Son, typically for Anna or Riku (both characters have Tsurime Eyes), but not in a negative manner. It's just used as a cartoonish effect.
• The Way to Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother: Lant Agriche and a handful of his children have those, sometimes combined with red irises. Agriches are well-known In-Universe for being a Big, Screwed-Up Family full of carefully cultivated sociopaths, and this reputation is absolutely deserved.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
    • Tyranno Hassleberry/Kenzan gets Hellish Pupils whenever accessing the power of his "Dinosaur DNA" that he gained from a bone transplant from an accident at a fossil dig.
    • When Judai enters Haou mode or becomes Haou Judai, his eyes turn an evil yellow. After fusing with Yubel, they then turn green and yellow, same as hers.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: This is one of the defining traits of the Dark Signers — they have very small pupils as well as black sclera.

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