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Ned: I'll know my perfect girl when I see her — because golden light will hit her just right, and the angels will sing!
Moze: Oh, please.
[Edward's] skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.
In anime, attractive men and women walk around in a cloud of sparkles. Maybe they're just so pretty that light, like members of the opposite sex (and occasionally the same sex), behaves strangely around them. Maybe Animeland pheromones take the form of glowing, colorful diamonds of light. Nobody really knows.
Or maybe it's just the fact that Generic Cuteness makes it hard to visually show the really beautiful people. Furthermore, this is usually shown when it's the point of view of the person looking at a Bishie, so this is likely to visually convey their inner feelings.
Some more recent examples will employ the Bishie Sparkle out of an intense commitment to irony, or humorously.
The effect also applies to cute couples, including Schoolgirl Lesbians but especially Yaoi Guys. Order Bishie Sparkle today and get a free helping of Love Bubbles.
Related to Gaussian Girl and Informed Attractiveness.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Felten of Hana To Akuma seems capable of invoking these at will.
- Osaka in Azumanga Daioh, despite not being particularly bishoujo, gets a Bishie Sparkle during her first scene. Sakaki also gets this during Kaorin's daydreams. To excess.
- Happens a lot in Fruits Basket, but most notably during Tohru's daydream of "if Yuki and Kyo got along".
- Parodied, like most other elements of shojo, in Ouran High School Host Club.
- THIS TROPE HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN IN THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS. And it really has, although all are more 'manly' than pretty. (Image.
 ◊) This really creeps out his fellow officers and one even pulled a prank where he barged in wearing an Armstrong costume that even came with small reflective items hanging of in the air it to give a pseudo-bishie sparkle effect.
- Armstrong sculpted a stature of himself in the movie as well; it had a small four-pointed piece of stone for a sparkle suspended by a strip of metal coming from the body.
- Played with a bit, since his whole family does this.
- Mei Chan Inner-Mind Theatre Edward and later Alphonse have this.
- Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is all about the Bishie Sparkle! The four main male characters do it all the time. Sunako (the horror obsessed, darkness loving ghost-resembling Sadako-Samara-esque-girl) calls them "creatures of the light" and avoids them at all costs or gets a Nosebleed. The four boys are incredibly attractive to men and women alike, and boy, do they know it. They sparkle all the time, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes because they can purposefully turn on the charm. Noi, a really popular girl and Takenaga's girlfriend, also sparkles a lot, because she's so pretty and perfect.
- Yuuichi of Kanon (see the picture above) purposely unleashes a Bishie Sparkle at one point to see how it feels to be a bishie, and he decides it just isn't his thing.
- Ironically, many would consider him to be a bishonen, just not an excess one.
- Maity-Sensei from Lovely Complex has a truly awesome Bishie Sparkle that he seems to be able to control (He often wraps it around his fingers and writes in the air with it when he is proud of himself) One time he even claims that he can use magic, then using the sparkle to demonstrate this.
- Negi Springfield from Mahou Sensei Negima sparkles whenever he tries to act cool and charming. This goes double when he's in his magically-aged-up form.
- He also sparkles in some of Nodoka's doodles, as seen in her diary.
- Repeatedly used in Hayate The Combat Butler, mostly for comedic effect - Hayate can even consciously generate Bishie Sparkle, complete with a Dramatic Wind and a Love Bubbles backdrop, when he needs to look really charming.
- In the Planetes manga, when The Baron lets down his hair (revealing that he was Bishonen All Along) he gets the Bishie Sparkle.
- Ginji and a one-shot character in Magical Project S.
- Vash the Stampede from Trigun gets this a few times in the anime.
- It is essentially impossible for Yoh from High School Debut to appear in a single panel without sparkling.
- Rose Of Versailles uses this frequently, usually with flowers nearby or as a background.
- As does Kaze To Ki No Uta. This seems to have been standard practice in Shoujo manga at the time.
- Michel Blanc and Alto Saotome of Macross Frontier both got them in the TV broadcast edit of Episode 1. Mikhail can even do it on command when flirting.
- Taki from Eyeshield21 is seen sparkling and winking in almost all of his appearances in the manga.
- The Black Lagoon manga used this to comedic effect in a flashback to Boris' youth. Apparently he used to be a bishie.
- Erica Hartmann did this in Strike Witches as part of a Show Some Leg to attract the attention of a passing truck. Even with all the sparkles, it still failed.
- Used by Ian, the movie star who temporarily lures Layla away from the stage in Kaleido Star. Layla does it quite a bit, as well, in Episode 13.
- Hendrick K. Strawberryfield in Kamen No Maid Guy projects sparkles when he removes his glasses. Which is quite often.
- He hypnotizes women with them.
- Possibly the strangest, most incredibly out-of-place use of this trope EVER was in one of the later episodes of Gundam Wing, in which Quatre, the already ambiguously-gay character, crouches over a wounded Heero and extends his hand, from which shines a sudden, brief, and totally unexpected shower of gold sparkles. Like, seriously. Totally came outta left field.
- It is implied that the gold sparkles are a manifestation of Quatre using his not-quite-explained-but-somewhat-implied psychic powers on Heero. He gathers the sparkles from across Heero's body and brings them to his chest, remarking that he agreed that the Earth had been kind to both of them, and so they should go back.
- This troper always assumed that it was an after effect of the Zero System, which Quatre had already used and was tapping into somehow. Still very odd for the show though.
- In D Grayman, Allen is shown to be able to exude Bishie Sparkles to get what he wants, most noticeably in this instance where he manages to manipulate the robot Komurin into falling for him and doing what he asks.
- The Student Council President and the Vice-President from Maria Holic. They sparkle so much that you could see the effects from a screen away.
- Baccano! gives a very brief flash of bishie sparkle to Ladd Russo, of all people. He's not really bishonen or anything; he's just being very hammy at the moment.
- Parodied in Natsume Yuujinchou with actor and part time exterminator Natori - who seems to accumulate fangirls wherever he goes.
- In Haruhi-chan, when Kyon and Koizumi dress up as hosts... So Yeah...
- Pretty much every appearance of Koizumi in Haruhi-chan has it...
- Seiji Kisaragi sparkles so much, that he's instantly nicknamed 'Sparkling Foreigner' when he appears for the first time.
- Game X Rush has Memori, who sparkles as part of his job: He's a bodyguard, and the Bishie Awesome is how he gets the clients. Typically, however, Memori is less Sparkle and more Monologue.
- When Keiichi became (even more) bishonen, he sparkled, in the Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni CD Drama, which came out a while before the anime, or even sound novel remakes.
- He also does this a few times in anime.
- Apparently, the main purpose of the two OAV episodes for Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyoushou is to provide fans with a shot of every of the eight main guys sporting Bishie Sparkles. Which isn't surprising at all.
- Train from Black Cat is constantly seen with these in a Gaussian Girl manner whenever Kyoko imagines or thinks about him.
Literature
- The vampires in Twilight sparkle in direct sunlight, which they avoid by either being nocturnal or living in places with near-constant rainfall (such as Forks, WA). Prettiness is apparently a vampire trait. This has actually become the main running joke (amongst many) in the series' Hatedom.
- Technically, I'm pretty sure the official explanation of how Twi-pires sparkle is because their skin cells are akin to diamonds. Yeah...
- True Art Is Sparkly.
- With the announcement of a Twilight manwha, the series may reach an unprecedented level of sparkle.
- This troper imagines something like Neo's glowing-body-of-light near the end of The Matrix...
- Spoofed in Lamb The Gospel According To Biff: glittery auras are also apparently an angel trait, but First Person Smartass Biff is less than impressed by it
Biff: And this golden stuff around you, this light, what is this?
Raziel: The glory of the Lord
Biff: You're sure it's not stupidity leaking out of you?
Live Action TV
- Played with on Neds Declassified School Survival Guide: Ned sees Bishie Sparkle three times around Moze and wonders if that means he likes her. The first two turn out to be someone working with a spotlight, but it's implied the third time was the real thing.
- Happens to pretty much every one of J.D.'s girlfriends on Scrubs though there's also usually a fan blowing in her hair and a music riff too. In one of the commentaries they joke that these are moments made for the commercial, cause sex sells.
Tabletop Games
- The Pretty Marines, a homebrew Warhammer 40000 Space Marine chapter created by a certain Image Board have this as a natural trait due to a special gland.
Video Games
- In The Sims 2, an option is to scan the room looking for people your Sim is attracted to. This is indicated by certain people being surrounded by a glowing light, complete with sparkles.
- No More Heroes does this in Harvey Moseiwitschii Volodarksii's boss fight to a comedic extent, with sparkles constantly radiating off him. However, his 'bishonen' appearance is rather damaged when he gets cut in half.
- Raiden occasionally generates this in the pre-Metal Gear Solid 4 joke trailers and the Snake Eraser bonus movie. At one point he and Snake race for each other, Snake trailing dramatic red and white flower petals, and Raiden trailing white and pink sparkles.
- Big Boss gets a helping of this, too, after telling Ocelot he's 'pretty good'. Ocelot, losing consciousness, perceives Big Boss as looking soft focus and sparkly.
- Prince Peasley needs only flip his hair to create a blinding blast of Bishie Sparkle Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga. He does this a lot, sometimes several times in the same scene.
- Being the resident uber-bishonen, Disgaea 3's Master Big Star uses the bishie sparkle on a near-constant basis. He even throws in a rose or two for added effect.
- Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility uses this effect to indicate when the main character has met a Love Interest.
- Human Teddie of Persona 4 has this, and boy does he abuse it.
- In Rainbow Mika's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, Zangief receives the Bishie Sparkle treatment. Okay...
- As of the September 2009 system update, the PS 3 cross media bar's standard background has added Bishie Sparkle.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive used this, and then hung a lampshade on it by having one of the characters ask "Since when can you glow?". Apparently, Tedd didn't even realise he was doing it.
- Of course, what with this being Shive and all, it may end up being magic or alien powers or something else.
- Played with in Cafe Anime, with Jules (in the "How to Bishi" non-continuity series) spraying a jar of "Bishi Glitter" on Lexx. Which, later in the same series, causes him to blind onlookers when exposed to direct sunlight.
- Parodied in this strip from the Stick Figure Comic Stickman And Cube, where the cartoonist supposedly draws the two characters Bishonen. The joke is that they look exactly the same, being of course a stickman and a cube, except with added Bishie Sparkle. But... so bishie!
- Used deliberately in this strip from webcomic Darian's Friends to illustrate one character's false idealized impression of another.
- In a ''The Last Days Of FOXHOUND'' flashback, Ocelot sees Big Boss with bishie sparkles, which makes so much sense if you've seen him in Metal Gear Solid 3. Liquid is appropriately traumatised when it turns out that there's no-one in FOX-HOUND who doesn't have a crush on his dad.
- Except maybe Mantis. And Raven.
- Brilliantly lampshaded in this strip of Fey Winds.
Western Animation
- Used on both Sam and Paulina within the same dance night on Danny Phantom.
- Avatar The Last Airbender Aang has seen them on Katara and a one-off character has seen them on Aang.
- Not to mention one guy saw them on Ty Lee in "The Beach".
- Mike Morningstar of Ben 10 Alien Force sparkles when he flies and is specifically commented on by Kevin. Of course, he's a Plumber's kid, so it could easily just be alien powers...
- On PBS's Maya and Miguel, one episode has Esperanza, who has a crush on Miguel, see said boy with these.
- Dutchess, the female lead of The Aristocats sparkles during one scene, in a close up of her face and eyes. It's almost surreal to see the Bishie Sparkle applied in a Disney film.
- In one of the animated The Lord Of The Rings movies, Elves had a Bishie Sparkle and halo around their heads.
- Surfer Dude Jack Kahuna Laguna in the Spongebob Squarepants episode "Spongebob vs. The Big One". Did I mention he's voiced by Johnny Depp?
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron uses this trope more then once. First time is a pretty hilarious moment when Cindy sees Jimmy in a tux, she gets hearts in her eyes, the camera zooms in on him making a pose with sparkles surrounding him (plus some appropriate music) , and she dreamily stares at him as he walks in the church ("Hunk muffin..."). The second time is reversed, when Jimmy sees Cindy in her space suit, she has sparkles floating around her.
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