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And yet, he's a damn good sheepdog...
A character with Blinding Bangs has a mop of hair that completely obscures his or her eyes — and sometimes the whole face. The character's eyes are covered all the time, to the point we rarely, if ever, see them, and can even wonder whether this personage has eyes.
How such a character could see clearly through such a thick curtain of hair — as is usually the case — is most often completely ignored. A trope much more common in comics and animation than in live-action (since it's a bit hard for an actor to play while blinded by such a hairdo).
This personal appearance trope can be used to convey various things. In western works, a character with such a hairstyle is often a bit of a dumbass; you very rarely, if at all, see permanent Blinding Bangs on a personage with above average intelligence. Since obscuring the eyes also obscures emotion, the character will usually seem a bit cool-headed, if not an outright stoic. Also frequently used in Anime and Manga to illustrate a shy one — girls with this hairstyle are called "maegamikko" or "mekakure" in Japan. Unlike the temporary kind of face-concealing hair a character might have when depressed, Blinding Bangs are usually not a sign of depression, although perpetually mopey characters might also have them.
The Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl usually has these. Compare Peek-A-Bangs, which cover only one eye. Contrast with Hidden Eyes, which is usually just temporary. The opposite of Show the Forehead.
Not to be confused with a flash grenade.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Fermet in Baccano has this.
- Kato from Genshiken.
- Nodoka of Mahou Sensei Negima! started with Blinding Bangs, though she switches between this and Peek-A-Bangs after the first chapter. (In some parts of the manga, she switches so often between visible eyes/hidden eyes, it looks like her hair keeps growing/shortening between panels.)
- Urabe's eyes are pretty much always obscured by her bangs in Mysterious Girlfriend X... and it's actually one of the ways she's mysterious. When a friend does her hair and gets her bangs out of her eyes, she complains that everything seems so... bright.
- Hazumu has this initially in Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl until he becomes a girl and his/her eyes are revealed.
- Yűichirô in Sailor Moon has a moderate case of this (along with Perma Stubble). We get to see his eyes a lot more than most of the other characters listed here; however, he usually is shown as having Blinding Bangs. Although in defiance of the standard versions of this trope he is neither shy nor an idiot (most of the time). It's to make him look unkempt and rough to contrast with his sweet personality.
- Belphegor in Katekyo Hitman Reborn!. Not so much "shy" as "completely batshit insane". Also, his twin brother Rasiel and Pantera who works for Longchamp.
- Hiroshi Sotomura in Ichigo 100%. As the resident pervert, it probably helps him hide where his gaze lingers....
- Ascot from Magic Knight Rayearth.
- Tsukiyo from Sketchbook.
- Inori from Hyakko.
- Joker from Flame of Recca usually covers his eyes with a hat, but he's got blinding bangs underneath as well. Not shy at all, although he does love to play at Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Tensou from Inukami! has these bangs, which are indicative of her shyness.
- Ochibana Ame from Denpa Teki Na Kanojo. This leads to a Beautiful All Along moment when Juu sees her with her bangs slicked back.
- From Naruto, young Nagato alias Pain, to hide his Rinnegan pupils until The Reveal. Quickly switches to Peek-A-Bangs.
- Nihiruda Yô, leader of the delinquent gang from High School! Kimengumi.
- Tuff from Kirby of the Stars.
- Zenzo Hattori from Gintama.
- Faye Shoafuu from Rust Blaster.
- Kuroki from Blazer Drive.
- Undertaker from Black Butler. Serves as a plot-point later in the manga, as his Blinding Bangs obscure his Shinigami Eyes
- Luna Inverse from Slayers.
- Luchs from Saber Marionette J (although she sometimes is presented with Peek-A-Bangs or none at all).
- Jigen, Lupin III — depending on the artist. His eyes are visible with his hat off (and sometimes with it on) during the third (pink jacket) series.
- Kyusaku Natsume, All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku.
- Kirin from Six Six Six Satan has this. Then again, there's a good reason for that...
- Sunako from Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge... up until her Important Haircut.
- M1/En from Yu Yu Hakusho has Blinding Bangs. When Genkai uses her Fist of Cleansing technique to purify him, his eyes are revealed to be VERY effeminate.
- For some reason, while this is not true in the anime, official artwork of Tenshi no Shippo depicts Goro Mutsumi with this style.
- Nekozawa, while wearing his cloak, and one of the lackeys of the Newspaper Club has this hairstyle in Ouran High School Host Club.
- Tenri from The World God Only Knows has these bangs in her arc, but cuts them later.
- Retro from Dead Leaves was like this in a flashback.
- Chad from Bleach is occasionally shown this way, when not with Peek-A-Bangs.
- Rocco/Rock from Phantom Thief Pokémon 7.
- Kiri Komori of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is known for her forelocks which either partially or completely cover her eyes.
- One Piece
- Carrot of the now-disbanded Usopp Pirates.
- Sadi-Chan from Impel Down. A huge mane of blonde hair and Blinding Bangs.
- Hayate the Combat Butler pokes fun at this trope for being a telltale sign of the Dating Sim protagonist (see below) when Hayate spies upon a oneshot character with the textbook appearance of such a character.
- Shizuka from Gaiking: Legend of Daiku-Maryu.
- Ritsu Tainaka from K-On! is known among her bandmates for her large forehead. They don't recognize her in Episode 4 of Season 1 when she takes off her hairband and reveal that her natural hairstyle is actually this trope.
- Beyblade
- Kenny from the Bladebreakers team. His hair always cover his glasses and predictably, he is the nerdy brain of the entire team.
- Beyblade's spin-off series, Metal Fight Beyblade, gives us quite a different example in the form of Reiji. He's actually quite the sadist. We do see his eyes occasionally, but that only means more trouble for his victims....
- Lucifer and Saint Andrew from Saint Young Men.
- Brief from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Once they're out of the way, though...
- Shishido Sakiti and Kageno Jin from Inazuma Eleven.
- Sano from Captain Tsubasa in most of the adaptions.
- Nihiru from Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo and Geronmino Jr. from Kinnikuman, both of whom were turned into Ringo Starr parodies in the dub.
- In Lucky Star, Kou asks Yama-san if her bangs don't get in the way, and she admits they're a little hard on the eyes. The reason she doesn't cut them is because she considers her face "hard on the eyes".
- Shinichi Akiyama in Liar Game features this a majority of the time. Combined with fact he keeps a distance from others, it serves to help add to his aloof nature.
Comic Books
Comic Strips
- Eva Rose, the neighbor girl whom the title character from Lio has a crush on, has Cousin Itt bangs.
- Beetle Bailey would count. His eyes were shown exactly once, when it was still a college strip.
- Chip Flagston from Hi And Lois. He's canonically Beetle Bailey's nephew, although this is almost never mentioned.
- Wellington, from the newspaper comic Wee Pals.
- Almost every character in The Far Side who doesn't wear glasses has an indistinct unibrow for eyes.
- Gus◊ from Gus and Gussie.
- Beaumont, the owner of the eponymous café in Pooch Cafe.
- Two of the characters in Dude and Dude.
- A Dick Tracy villain, Ugly Christine.
- Moe the school bully in Calvin And Hobbes.
- The main character of the Norwegian newspaper comic Bĺnn.
Films — Animation
- In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the eyes of Flint's dad Tim are almost always hidden under his eyebrows. Raising his eyebrows is used for great effects throughout the movie.
- Dizzy the Vulture from The Jungle Book.
- The Backson in Winnie the Pooh
- One of the scarers from Monsters, Inc. is a green tentacled monster who for some reason has his face completely covered by his long, shaggy purple mane.
Films — Live-Action
Literature
- In the Discworld novel Soul Music, wizard student Skazz has a hairdo that completely covers his head — with only the tip of his nose hinting which way he's facing.
- Helen Haras-Uquara from The Homeward Bounders has apparently been cultivating blinding bangs for most of her life, to the extent that the main character is convinced that she has got her back to him.
Live-Action TV
- Cousin Itt from the various versions of The Addams Family is certainly the Exaggerated Trope of this. It is unsure whether he actually has eyes... or a face... or anything under all that hair, yet he has no trouble seeing.
Music
- Noodle of the Gorillaz band has Blinding Bangs after her age shift to teenager.
- Slash from Guns N' Roses can occasionally cover his face with his wild hair.
- Great White guitarist Mark Kendall is often referred to as "Cousin It", due to his stage persona of keeping his face hidden completely behind long hair.
Puppet Shows
- Boober from Fraggle Rock.
- The Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show has bushy eyebrows covering where his eyes should be, making a him a combination of this trope and a non-scary version of Eyeless Face.
- Groove, the green puppet from The Hoobs.
- One of the monsters from Sesame Street looks like this.
Video Games
- Shermie from the The King Of Fighters series always has her eyes completely covered by her bangs. It's more than a little creepy, especially when you consider that she spends all her time hanging around Cute Shotaro Boy Chris.
- Shigure from Suikoden V is another example. Lampshaded when one of Oboro's notes mentions that Fuyo wants to "fix" his hair.
- Lowen from Fire Emblem 7 (i.e. the first one to come to the West) is an example. We never see his eyes. And yet it's revealed in support conversations that he's actually not bad at cooking. How can he cook without seeing? How can he fight without seeing? We will never know.
- Mitadake High has a character known as The Creepy Red-haired Boy with this hairstyle.
- EarthBound: Porky and Picky Minch.
- Ash, Edda, Photon and Count Ten from pop'n music (and possibly more, it is a series with Loads and Loads of Characters).
- Maguro Sasaki from Puyo Puyo 7.
- Hoagie, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle.
- Layer, one of the three members of Mission Control in Mega Man X 8. Her eyes can be seen while she blushes (especially when around Zero, to whom she is a Hopeless Suitor).
- Venom from Guilty Gear wears his hair like a literal veil and has a creepy painting of an eye superimposed on it. However, depending on the artwork, sometimes you can see a small portion of his face by looking around the hair-veil◊ (but sometimes not◊), and it does flip up and leave his face completely exposed and visible in his in-match falling animation.
- The bassist in Guitar Hero 3 has Blinding Bangs and a massive beard that covers everything but his nose.
- Capcom artist Edayan seems to always have at least one character like this, as Roberto Miura from Rival Schools and Cracker Jack from Street Fighter EX have their eyes perpetually covered by their hats.
- A minor character in Ganbare Goemon, (Koryuta, the son of the Dragon God), has this.
- Pokémon: Piloswine, Ralts, Woobat, and Litwick (over one eye). Deino and Zweilous would be this, except they have no eyes to cover, hence justifying their Hustle ability (increases Attack, lowers accuracy).
- Bebedora from Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits has a large hat covering the top half of her head. Sometimes it goes up a little, and it looks like she has no eyes at all!
- Vivian, Marilyn, and Beldam from Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door.
- Max from Marvelous: Another Treasure Island, though his eyes will appear during "surprised" poses.
- The Soldier from Team Fortress 2 has these, in a way — his helmet obscures his eyes from almost all angles.
- Nessiah from Yggdra Union.
- Vienya from Knights in the Nightmare.
- Amarant from Final Fantasy IX.
- Tesse from Waku Waku 7
- Kuroda Kanbe from Sengoku Basara has two small bangs that seem to be permanently attached to his eyes.
- Tab/Corn in Jet Set Radio, at least in the first game.
- This is one of the hairstyle options for the Dwarf females in the MMORPG, Lineage 2.
- Scias in Breath of Fire IV.
- Baby Eoleo in Golden Sun: The Lost Age has an always-confused look that's only amplified by the bangs in his face. Awwwwww! He grew his hair out and tied it back by Dark Dawn.
Visual Novels
- This a common feature in Dating Sims (especially those made in The Nineties) which want to show the main protagonist, but want to maintain a degree of anonymity so that the player can identify himself to the character. The Tokimeki Memorial series and its Spiritual Successor Mitsumete Knight are two good (non-H) examples of this.
- Winfred "Big Wins" Kitaki from Apollo Justice Ace Attorney has his eyes covered by his insanely thick eyebrows until the end of the trial. His eyes are revealed to be tiny and insatiably cute. Kind of a subversion really, since before that, you're meant to think his eyebrows were his deeply-sunken eyes, making Winfred look insanely scary.
Web Comics
- Mopey of The B-Movie Comic has this as a definite characteristic: two large bangs cover her eyes and most of her face all the time. The mystery of her true appearance is heavily parodied in this strip.
- Kenta from Sexy Losers, a very NSFW comic! When the artist did a character portrait for him, he didn't even have eyes, as the artist was too used to doing him with Blinding Bangs and couldn't figure out how they should look.
- Rick from The KAMics.
- Pepito from Our Home Planet. Rika and Ruby are also borderline cases, though their eyes can usually be seen through the hair.
- Marek from Octopus Pie.
- Subverted in Everyday Heroes, where Carrie has a huge head of hair that covers most of her face. Oddly, she wears her glasses over her hair, through which her eyes are visible. How exactly this works is not explained, but Carrie is one of the more intelligent and outgoing characters.
- Driver from The Adventures of Wiglaf and Mordred.
- The Majestic 12 from Trying Human all have this in one form or another, especially 8.
- Wench Wendy and Harrison from PronQuest (a now-defunct, NSFW parody webcomic of MMORPG).
- The goat-herder girl from Oglaf — NSFW.
- Emo Kid from Head Trip.
- Many of the characters in Scout Crossing are portrayed this way.
- Dave Gold from Supernormal Step initially has Blinding Bangs to emphasize his lack of grooming and nineties grunge style. He tucks them into a hat later.
- One of the Mystery Solving Teens from Hark! A Vagrant.
- One of the angels from Darwin Carmichael Is Going to Hell.
- Blanche from Skin Deep.
- The "Pixie Chicks" from Rusty and Co.
- Jeff from Paranatural.
- Taisei from Sakana, most of the time, sometimes you can see one eye or both.
Web Original
- Gaia Online
- You can have a hairdo like this, as seen here.
- Before he was turned into that lovable clam in our Aquariums, The Overseer's hair was like this, both as a "child" and presumably as an "adult" without that large but Nice Hat of his. A bit ironic given what his name is and what he does after being turned into said clam. He then gets his powers removed forcibly by Jack, and now his eyes can be seen quite visibly both in the Aftermath manga and as the "Hoboverseer." His doll also has a wig like this for your avatar.
- The Food Market shopkeeper NPC◊ from the virtual pet site Verpets.
- The Monster Girl Encyclopedia: The Werebat. Justified, as she probably doesn't use her eyes.
Western Animation
- Codename Kids Next Door
- Numbuh 4's eyes are covered by his hair.
- Mr.Wink as well. His eyes were seen far less than Numbuh 4's eyes were in his apperances.
- Also, the tallest of the Delightful Children from Down the Lane.
- Looney Tunes
- Sam Sheepdog has a mop of red hair completely covering his eyes. He's still perfectly able to see, as Ralph Wolf could attest from several painful confirmations. Sam subverted this trope on at least one occasion: when the wolf looks through his binoculars, he sees a pair of angry, blood-shot red eyes staring back at him before being beaten to a pulp. And Ralph did lift those Blinding Bangs at one time, too!
- The Abominable Snowman also has a tuft of fur that always obscures his eyes.
- Avatar The Last Airbender
- The Big Dog from Two Stupid Dogs.
- Duane from Home Movies.
- Molly MacDonald, one of the fourth graders, in Arthur.
- Multiple Man on Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles.
- Vall Hallen in the "Justice Friends" segment of Dexters Laboratory.
- Eugene Meltsner of the animated version of Adventures in Odyssey has these bangs... and wears glasses over them. Judging from the artwork for the most recent episode album, this appears to be◊ coming to an end.
- Pi from Sabrina: The Animated Series. His eyes are always covered by his hat, on at least one occasion his hat came off and his eyes were still covered by his hair.
- Lou's mom's eyes in Lou! are covered by her hair, even though her glasses aren't.
- Lee Kanker from Ed, Edd n' Eddy. Revealed to be a triclops in the movie.
- Cro-Marmot from Happy Tree Friends.
- Breach from Generator Rex, over her whole face.
- Wakfu
- Princess Lela from season 1 episode 4, at least in her cursed form.
- Also Chamberlain Thickdruft of the Sadida kingdom, which makes him mistake someone else for Amalia all the time, even if it's a guy. However he is unaware of this, and will accuse said person of impersonating the princess.
- Shag from Road Rovers is another sheepdog example.
- Big Billy in The Powerpuff Girls. And for good reason — he briefly lifts his bangs while attending the girls' school to scare the living hell out of the kindergarten kids with his cycloptic eye.
- All three members of the Gruesomes family in The Flintstones.
- Mitch from Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?
- A few background characters on Jimmy Two-Shoes, most notably one of the members of Runny and the Nosebleeds.
- Two of the three pegasi who taunt Rainbow Dash in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode, "Sonic Rainboom".
- Roxy Sparkle, Transformers Animated.
- Crash, the lead singer and guitarist of "The Betty's" from Phineas And Ferb.
Real Life
- Sam Sheepdog's look is based on a Truth in Television. Many dog breeds, old English sheepdogs among them, naturally get this kind of hairfall. It's called a fau and serves to protect their eyes. Other breeds with it include the lhasa apso, shih tzu, soft-coated wheaten terrier, and Bouvier des Flandres. At least in the lhasa apso's case, they can still see because they have super-strong eyelashes that hold the fau just ahead of the eyes.
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