Dull Eyes of Unhappiness

Top: Normal mood.
Bottom: Oh no...

"Bright eyes, burning like fire.
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?"

— Art Garfunkel, "Bright Eyes"

Normally, happy people's eyes shine and reflect their environment. This is because the coating of tears over the exposed eye to keep it from drying out reflects light sources within a certain distance.

In anime and manga, though, when a character is feeling sad, very tired, depressed, or about to snap, their eyes lose all the natural shine and have the appearance of being lifeless. Depending on the art style, this can range from merely a lack of highlights to the iris turning into a flat disc of the afflicted's base color. May or may not be accompanied by tired lines in the face. This trope is never a good sign.

Often goes hand-in-hand with the Heroic BSoD, and can betray a Stepford Smiler to the audience, although none of the characters in-story seem to notice the eye problem.

This can be Truth in Television, because sad, shocked, or tired people tend to slightly lower their head, which causes the upper part of the eyes, which is normally reflecting the light, to be concealed. When the person recovers naturally or when dealing with a recent trauma, this is a case of the Thousand-Yard Stare; Dull Eyes of Unhappiness are a chronic problem that do not show noticeable improvement over time.

Sub-Trope of Reflectionless Useless Eyes. See Empty Eyes for sister tropes.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Ace of the Diamond: Chris Yuu Takigawa appears this way when he's first introduced. The reason is that he's depressed due to being relegated to the second string of Seidou's baseball team after he suffered a Game-Breaking Injury. He gets better thanks to training and mentoring Eijun Sawamura.
• Ah! My Goddess: Invoked by Belldandy whenever she experiences jealousy over seeing other women flirting with Keiichi, after which she tends to accidentally make stuff blow up.
• In Asteroid in Love, Moe's eyes lose their gloss in the first chapter/episode, when Mikage presses her to join the geology side of the Earth Science Club, up to and including using a set of power stones as sweetener.
• Happens frequently in Attack on Titan, thanks to the traumatic experiences endured by the cast. A few examples include:
  • Mikasa gets them after Armin informs her that Eren was (supposedly) dead.
  • Broken Bird Annie has them as a default expression, though she plays it off as being bored with everyone around her. The rare moments When She Smiles reveal she's hiding a much warmer personality behind her icy exterior.
  • Levi looks fairly detached most of the time, but his eyes only become dead upon discovering the bodies of his squad. It's a hint of the Unstoppable Rage he's preparing to unleash.
  • During the cleanup operation at Trost, the characters are all wearing handkerchiefs over their faces. This leaves the focus on their eyes, as they take in the horrible aftermath of the battle. When Jean discovers the body of Marco, his eyes become glassy and unfocused.
  • Bertolt when Eren calls him a monster and promises to make his death as painful as possible. Combined with his Troubled Fetal Position, it just makes him look defeated.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Shadow Mei is a Soul Fragment filled with the original Mei's hate for humanity, which shows in her eyes lacking any sheen. When she shows signs of getting over her grudge, her eyes are suddenly drawn normally.
• All three main characters from Berserk have these eyes at one point or another during their angst-filled stories, most notably:
  • After Guts assassinates Count Julius and killed his son, which he was not anticipating and was quite disturbed by the aftershock.
    • Guts seems to have these persistently after the Eclipse. Guts has these mainly because his remaining eye is almost always in shrunken iris mode and he is almost always either angry or sad. However, one notable moment gives life back to his eye when he learns that Casca might be cured again, and he gives a genuine smile to match.
  • When Casca almost commits suicide by jumping off a cliff upon realizing her dream of being Griffith's sword and woman were over, she gets this.
  • Post-tortured and Post Heroic BSoD following Guts leaving him Griffith. All the time.
• Black Butler: Downplayed with Ciel. Although his eyes still have a normal amount of luster, he also had a lot more sparkle before everything went to shit.
• Black Lagoon: Anytime Revy's eyes lose their luster, it's a sign that she's in Whitman Fever mode and is incredibly dangerous to be around.
• Bleach:
  • Momo Hinamori gets them when finding Aizen impaled to the wall with his sword. It lasts until Gin shows up. Her rage turned out to be stoppable, sadly.
  • She gets them like that again much later, when Hitsugaya is tricked into impaling her. By Aizen.
  • Orihime gets it as well when she's forced to admit to Ulquiorra that by wearing the Arrancar dress, she belongs to Aizen.
• Bungo Stray Dogs: It's stated by Word of God that this trope indicates a character (at least at the moment) is "evil, hopeless and beyond help". A lot of Mafia members show it.
  • One notable example is Dazai: Before his Heel–Face Turn, his eyes are almost always dull and he is a straight-played Death Seeker. Currently his eyes are somehow brighter (except for the few times when he gets dark again), and his desire for death has become much more diluted compared with before.
  • During Kyouka's time as an assassin of the Mafia, her eyes show no light nor hope. Now at the agency, she finds the purpose of her life, and the dimness disappear from her eyes.
• Chobits: In the anime, the characters' eyes are usually depicted this way, to the point of seeming to be a stylistic quirk, until a major shift occurs: Chi's program gives all the persocoms normal-looking eyes. By contrast, the human characters continue to be drawn in this style. There are multiple ways to interpret what this means.
• In Darker than Black, Hei always seems to have this combined with black eyes. Though, knowing his Dark and Troubled Past it really isn't all that surprising.
• Death Note:
  • Light Yagami has these in episode 1 before finding his "purpose." Also in episode 26 when trying to adjust to a world without L in it.
  • Naomi gets these too once Light tells her he's Kira and she walks off to die. Although, considering how and why she's going to die, they could easily be another look.
  • Speaking of Light, he also has it in episode 19 when he's thinking about being Kira without having any memory of it.
  • Happens to Mello when he removes his motorcycle helmet during the Takada mission. This is likely because a) he just found out that his best friend Matt was killed and b) he knew he'd likely be next.
  • This is L's default look until just before he dies. Near has these as well
• Death Parade deals with heavy themes and dark moments in a person's life. This trope is often shown in flashbacks of characters in their Darkest Hour, or when a character is about to cross a line they can’t come back from.
  • In flashbacks, Chiyuki has these while staring blankly at trophies she won as a figure skater after a leg injury made it so that she'd never be able to skate again. Given the emphasis that’s been placed on her smiles and positive demeanour up until then, it's quite jarring to see.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: Both Yamato and Sora get this when they're being affected by the Dark Ocean.
  • Digimon Frontier: Taking advantage of Koichi's loneliness and sadness, Cherubimon erases his memory, resulting in his expressive blue eyes becoming pale black (and making a small slasher smile), before using his tainted Duskmon form to digivolve into Velgemon.
  • Digimon Adventure tri.: Himehawa's eyes have become like this by the fifth movie, by which point she has gone quite, quite mad.
• A sure-fire sign that a Diclonius from Elfen Lied has been pushed past the breaking point is their eyes going dead. Not even sweet, pacifistic little Nana is above this.
• The Familiar of Zero: Loiuse's eyes grow dim whenever she's about to cast a powerful spell.
• In Free!, though it's subtle, Haruka's eyes are much brighter as a child. We're given a comparison in the first episode with the scene cuts from a shot of kid Haruka's eyes to an older, much more apathetic-looking Haruka with duller eyes. As the anime progresses the brightness returns, and he also begins to express much more emotion.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: The characters have bright eyes, and the manga will usually show them dull and monochrome to hammer a point:
  • Edward Elric has these during his first meeting with Mustang due to still being traumatised from his failed attempt to resurrect his mother.
  • On closer inspection Maes Hughes actually has this, due to his experiences in Ishval.
  • Rose has these in the last few episodes of the 2003 anime due to her trauma from being raped.
• Full Metal Panic!:
  • Sousuke is shown to have eyes like this during his Heroic BSoD. More pronounced in the Sigma manga, where there are several pages with his eyes looking like this. In fact, his eyes losing the light and reflectiveness in them is actually brought up in-series by Gauron, who laments how Sousuke has lost the beautiful, untainted emotion and clearness in them (including a flashback shot of Sousuke's eyes being incredibly sparkly and glowy◊, in a Gaussian Girl manner).
  • Mao notes the 'despair eyes' of Creepy Child Yu Lan, who with her sister has a similar tragic past to Sousake.
• In Fushigi Yuugi, Miaka notes that Yui's eyes are unusually dull and that something seems different about her, when Miaka first sees her at the Palace of Kutou, before learning of Yui's alleged rape. However, this is not really apparent to the audience.
• Future Diary:
  • These are one of the most obvious tells that Yuno is in kill mode: her eyes go from vibrant to completely dull and emotionless.
  • Yuki has these as he's being held captive by Yuno.
• Gankutsuou: Seen in episode 9, while Franz is musing about his unrequited love for Albert.
• The Garden of Sinners:
  • Although Shiki's eyes reflect highlights just fine, they're never drawn with pupils; just dull brown irises. Shiki's personality isn't as simple as 'unhappy', but it's one of the first indicators that she's not quite right.
  • It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance, but Lio Shirazumi also has these during his brief cameo in the second movie. He loses them by the seventh movie.
• Girls und Panzer:
  • Miho has this in the first episode, after being told to take Tankery by the student council, which results in her having a blank, unchanging stare, until she and her new friends, Saori and Hana, were in the nurse's office.
  • Apparently Played for Laughs in the Motto Love Love Sakusen spin-off manga where some characters would sport these when they see something embarrassingly wrong. An example would be when Miho received a Christmas picture message from her elder sister.
• Poor Fighter bears these eyes at the end of Episode 1 of Goblin Slayer after her horrific ordeal at the hands of the goblins.
• In the final episode of Haibane Renmei, Reki's already dark eyes have a dull, dead look to them after she learns her true name and breaks down.
• Russia from Hetalia: Axis Powers gets these to show when he gets too upset to keep his cool, since he's almost always calmly smiling regardless of his mood. Looks like it rubbed off on Lithuania, too.◊ Some characters have these permanently, such as Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland.
• In Hidamari Sketch, Hiro has dull eyes when she wakes up since she is Not a Morning Person.
• In Hoshin Engi, during Taikobo's first Heroic BSoD (where Dakki threw all the people from the village into the snake and alligator pit to get eaten), he is shown to have eyes like this. He gets over it within a few pages, though.
• Hunter × Hunter: Gon is currently featured for the trope image. He gets these in Chapters 304 and 305 (and for the anime, Episodes 130 and 131) after finding out that Kite is dead, after convincing himself that he was still alive.
• Nayuki Minase from Kanon has a severe case of Dull Eyes during her Heroic BSoD after Akiko got hit by a car. Power of Friendship snaps her out of it, though.
• Kemono Friends: Fans noticed that all the friends based on extinct animals such as Thylacine and Passenger Pigeon sport this kind of eyes. This is all but confirmed to be directly related to their extinct status, as Kaban's eyes go dim once she hears about human's apparent extinction.
• Souji Kuonji's eyes are drawn this way for most of the OAV adaptation of the H game Ko-ko-ro... to show how deeply the abuse at the hands of his parents, as well as the trauma surrounding their deaths and that of his older sister, Kasumi, has scarred him. He begins to come out of his deep funk towards the end of the second episode, thanks to his budding relationship with Mizuki, but Asuka subtly nudges him into revisiting the day of the murders, stigmatizing him severely and causing his dull eyes to return, seemingly permanently.
• Haruka Kotoura of Kotoura-san initially has these (of the 'no iris' variety) after far too many Heroic BSODs to count in her life, which thankfully doesn't last too long in-show. Her mother also has a pair of these, though they last far longer than her daughter's.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004), the normally cheerful Red gets a pair after mistaking Green and Vio for dead. He snaps out of it when Blue saves him from a monster.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Fate Testarossa gets these during her Antivillainous BSOD after her mother Precia reveals what her origins are and how she really feels about her.
  • Subaru gets them in her fight against her Brainwashed and Crazy sister Ginga in StrikerS.
• In various instances, these happen in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch whether by mind control or through the effects of the songs some villains sing.
• A second before Katejina Loos of Mobile Suit Victory Gundam snaps and gets blasted in the face by V2 Assault-Buster's Wings of Light, her eyes turn into this. After the whole thing, she is seen on a wheelchair, completely blinded, completely dull, and completely helpless. Fate Worse than Death indeed.
• In MOON – Subaru Solitude Standing, Subaru sports shineless eyes after her past has been broadcasted on Japanese TV without her knowledge.
• The title character of Morita-san Wa Mukuchi plays with this; sure, she's got the eyes and freaks people out, but she's really just a fairly normal, if quiet, high school girl.
• Shizuru from My-HiME gets these briefly during her Face–Heel Turn, but they're only really noticeable right after she attacks Haruka and Yukino.
• Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea: Manaka has these at the end of episode 22 when it's revealed that she has lost the ability to fall in love.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto has these shown throughout after he is told that Jiraiya is dead.
  • Sasuke has these constantly due to his horrific past and present which is especially noticeable following the Time Skip.
  • Sasuke's older brother Itachi is shown with eyes like these when is Sharingan isn't activated. And with good reason.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Asuna is drawn this way based on her state of amnesia regarding her Dark and Troubled Past. Upon regaining said memories, she went into a blank catatonia for days. She also sports these in the first anime when she dies and again in chapter 352 upon seeing Negi's grave.
• Done chillingly with both Asuka and Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion during the respective points at which they reach catatonic levels of depression.
• No. 6: Sion gets dull eyes in episode 10 when killing the guard who tried to kill Nezumi.
• Noir: When Kirika's eyes get like this, it serves as an indicator that she's just gone from dangerous to Death Incarnate.
• PandoraHearts: Oz's eyes go dull upon finding out about Alice's death in Cheshire's world. The eyes remain as his BSOD ends in favor of trying to destroy the entire dimension. This, of course, would be very bad for everyone still inside.
• As Mima from Perfect Blue loses her grip on reality, she does this more and more often.
• In Pokémon Adventures, White gets these (as well as having them full of tears) after her Tepig abandons her for N and she falls out of the Ferris Wheel out of shock.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure: Characters usually have these when under the influence of villains, usually Pisard or Poisony.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure!: Chiffon gets these when she's kidnapped and turned into Infinity.
  • Smile PreCure!: Cure Happy gets these when she sees that none of her attacks even put a mark on Joker.
  • KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: In the last few episodes, Ichika/Cure Whip is transported to Ellios' world and loses all her memories, and also giving her blank blue eyes as opposed to her usual magenta.
  • Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Cure Star gets these when she sees Aiwarn turn a Star Color Pen into a Dark Pen.
• The Magical girls from Puella Magi Madoka Magica get this after their Soul Gem is taken away from them. Though they're dead at that point, since the name of the Soul Gems is quite literal. Sayaka also gets this a few times as she inches ever so closer to the Despair Event Horizon.
• In Rent-A-Girlfriend, Mami Nanami is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing whose smile is rarely out of genuine happiness. When Mami's in an especially bad mood, she'll gaze at someone with blank, lifeless eyes, which usually terrifies the person enough to scare them off.
• Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective: The titular character's eyes appear dead on introduction due to having spent years unable to pursue his one passion of solving crimes. Isshiki lampshades the artistic choice, complaining that even a dead fish's eyes still reflect light.
• Rurouni Kenshin: After Enishi's apparent murder of Kaoru, the titular character shows dull eyes.
• Sailor Moon:
  • After Rei fights a youma in the finale of the first season and is killed after all the other inner scouts have died fighting, Usagi's eyes become blank and she shuts down.
  • She also gets blank eyes when she turns into Princess Serenity for the first time.
  • People's eyes also become blank when their pure hearts are taken in the S season. And Usagi also sports them briefly after her and Saturn's fight against Pharaoh 90, when she returns with baby!Hotaru in her arms.
  • Around half of Super S, Usagi gets these eyes again when her Dream Mirror is shattered in pieces.
  • This also happens to Usagi when the Silver Crystal is shattered on reentry at the end of the Sailor Moon R movie but it could be because She's dead. It's about like it is with the before-mentioned Dream Mirror.
• Ikeda Kana in Saki, when she's at death's door due to having 0 point in the game.
• In Samurai Champloo, we watch as this happens to Okuru's eyes in his flashback. He returns to his village to find it destroyed and in flames, and his wife collapses and dies right in front of him. Over the course of a couple of seconds, his eyes change from normal to dull. Watch for yourself. Mugen later compares them to the eyes of someone who is already dead.
• Sekai and Kotonoha and even Makoto get this once or twice in School Days. It's more notorious in the latter's case as she gets them more often than the other two. See the Visual Novels part for more details.
• Kaede Fuyou of SHUFFLE! starts displaying these in the anime at her mother's funeral, when she starts losing her will to live. Much later, the same happens after Rin starts spending more time with Asa.
• In Soul Eater, Crona has shineless eyes as a natural part of their default look. Which is not really surprising given their awfully Dark and Troubled Past.
• In the Alicization arc of Sword Art Online, following the battle with Quinella, Kirito's STL is affected by a power surge just as he was grieving over Eugeo's death sending him into an Angst Coma with hollow eyes.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Simon suffers an extreme case that lasts for several episodes on end as he falls into a horrific stint of grief. The cause was the death of his beloved blood brother and greatest friend, Kamina.
• In the 2022 reboot of Urusei Yatsura, Ataru becomes depressed after Lum seemingly leaves him and his eyes go dull. The light comes back to them when he sees that she's returned. He tries to hide how happy he is to see her, of course.
• In Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest, poor Aoshika is totally lifeless after being horrifically stripped of her personhood after undergoing hours of continuous gang rape at the hands of Haguro and his men.
• Your Lie in April:
  • Played for Laughs at the start of episode 5. Kaori's eyes suddenly become this when the gang visit her without knocking on the door and sneaks an accidental peek at her while she was naked and receiving a sponge bath from the nurse.
  • Played straight at episode 20 from a traumatized Kousei on his way home after he was visiting Kaori only to see her health take a sharp turn for the worst.
• Bruno from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds seems to naturally have these, despite being quite happy most of the time. They could signify his status as an amnesiac, or the fact that he's actually a robot with a Dark and Troubled Past.
• YuruYuri:
  • Played for laughs in the anime with Akari getting them after Chinatsu, rather forcefully, kisses her in Episode 5. Complete with teardrop for added effect.
  • Happens to Akari again by Chinatsu's doing, again, in season 2. This time, she gave Akari a torturous "massage."

Arts

• A characteristically understated field of modern art is neo-realism and its era/culture-specific splinters, such as the New Objectivity of Weimar Germany. While this trope is obviously not used in every single example of every single school, it is at least somewhat common when depicting and using the human "gaze". Examples include many works by Christian Schad (NSFW warning - some paintings depict nudity and sexual themes) and Meredith Frampton.

Audio Plays

• Some of the artwork for the Yandere Heaven series depict the boys with empty eyes.
• Each girl from Yandere no Onna no Ko show two pictures, one where she looks normal and another where her eyes lose their sparkle and she's wielding her weapon of choice.

Comic Books

• In the last arc of Runaways, where the characters were often depicted with glossy eyes, Molly develops a pronounced case of dull eyes while watching over Klara, who's recently suffered a mild concussion and a bit of Mind Rape. In this case, the unhappiness stems from a mix of concern for her friend, profound exhaustion, and a growing distrust of her teammates (who were responsible for the aforementioned mind rape.)
• A rare case of the trope happening in western comics: in The Twilight Zone: The After Hours, a young woman who believes she's being stalked by the department store's mannequins, discovers that she herself is a mannequin. Unable to accept that her entire life and memories as a human were all an illusion, she enters a very brief semi-catatonic state, where her eyes glaze over her tired face.

Fan Works

• Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: After Germany pulled out a Browning Hi Power on Japan and Japan pulled out his katana on Germany, Italy had had enough of their Cock Fight.
  It only took one look at the utterly devastated form of their precious beloved, one look at normally limpid brown eyes dead with misery and grief to do all three to those two nations. Simultaneously. And then some.
• Shows up in a few fanfictions by Kalash93. The single greatest example is Racer And The Geek, where Sunny Breeze almost always has this expression. They also figure into Last One Standing.
• The Kedabory Verse:
  • Downplayed in Home Sick (NoonboryKedabory); Disco Kid's eyes are dull while he's worrying over a sickly Aran Ryan.
  • In That Catch in Your Throat, Sierra's eyes are dull as she leaves the village, since she's going to miss her padre and sisters.
• In Live a Hero (MHA), this is Izuku's default expression due to the horrid childhood he had while being raised by the League of Villains. He becomes significantly more chipper as he starts acquiring friends, but he hasn't smiled once in years and his "dead" eyes remain.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan comic Motherly Scootaloo, the titular character gets dull eyes in moments of distress.
• In Robb Returns, Willas sees the light in Mace's eyes fade when Otherbane rejects him.
• Invoked in the Naruto fanfic Tale of the Setting Sun after Naruto is told by Kakashi he is a jinchuuriki and that the Kyuubi was sealed inside him by his own father.

Literature

• In Dragon and Phoenix, Shei-Luin sees the Emperor's newest concubine, the absolutely hapless Lady Nama. They meet eyes and Shei-Luin is shocked.
  She had never seen such emptiness in another's eyes; it was as if this woman's soul had fled. Even as Shei-Luin wondered if this was no human woman but a fox-ghost come to trick Xiane, the other woman stared up at the palace, and all-too-human despair filled her face.
• In Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson, April visits the grave of her former adoptive mother Janet, who committed suicide after many years of depression. The headstone has a picture of Janet on her wedding day. April notes how bright Janet's eyes are in the photo, and sadly remembers that the brightness was gone when April knew her.
• In Harry Potter, seems to become the default state of those who have had a long stay at Azkaban. It is noted more than once that Sirius still has a dead look in his eyes, even a few years after he broke out. That doesn't mean he's always unhappy though.
• I Am Not a Serial Killer: When Elijah gets a good look at John's face, the first thing he mentions is the "buried pain". Before learning his name, Elijah calls him "the boy with the dead eyes".
• Arwen in the appendix to The Lord of the Rings, after Aragorn's death: "and the light of her eyes was quenched."
• In A Song of Ice and Fire while Arya is an apprentice among the Faceless Men, her mentor the kindly man refers to her "sad gray eyes that have seen so much".
• In Those That Wake, people corrupted by hopelessness have these eyes.

Live-Action TV

• In the HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, those who have been severed from their Daemon, an animal manifestation of their soul display these, through post-production digitally removing the reflections in their eyes.

Music

• Referenced in Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
  "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
  Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky."

Video Games

• Advanced V.G. II: Seen during the storymode cutscene where Tamao visits Yuka at her hotel room and finds her virtually listless, due to suffering from guilt over the deaths of K-1 and K-2.
• If the Inquisitor encourages Cullen to continue taking lyrium for the sake of his duty in Dragon Age: Inquisition, there will be a cutscene in which they discuss the fact that he has done so. Observant players can note that his normally warm brown eyes are much paler than usual, with smaller pupils, indicating that the Fantastic Drug is continuing to addle him. This is also the scene in which, if he has been in a romance with the Inquisitor up to this point, he will break it off, citing his duty as being more important.
• Orson from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, after we learn that not only he's a traitor to Renais, but that he been gone off the deep end for a while already.
• In Fuga: Melodies of Steel, a child can adopt this state should they be unlucky enough to enter a Depressive state. In Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2, Malt ends up having this for about a third of the game in response to the apparent death of his friend Hanna.
• In Gungnir, most characters' eyes will have some highlight to them depending on the angle, but not so for Julio, the protagonist—in every released piece of art featuring him thus far. As it's also apparently his destiny to cause mass destruction with a horrifically powerful demonic weapon, it's fair to say that something is up with this kid. It doesn't show in his perky, cheerful disposition, but it sure shows on his face.
• Lonely Wolf Treat: The wolf Trick is a Perpetual Smiler who is almost always in a good mood, but even they get upset sometimes. Whenever they are distressed, their smile falters a little bit and their eyes become greyed out.
• Mad Father: Most of the eponymous character's former victims sport these, bar some. Maria has these during her backstory (she was homeless and on the verge of starvation, it seems), and Aya also has them in one ending. Because she's dead — or more accurately a doll.
• In Melty Blood, Tohno Shiki's eyes completely lose their light and pupils whenever something angers him to a certain extent. For example, in Actress Again, Roa's very presence causes Shiki's eyes to become this way. Rather than unhappiness, this is meant to signify complete erasure of emotion; it's meant to show his will to kill.
• In Pokémon Sword and Shield, Bede notably sports these 24/7. He loses them after Opal takes him in, signifying how he's much happier under her tutelage (not that he'd ever admit it) than he was trying to please Chairman Rose.
• In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's DLC, Kieran's eyes turn into these after his Sanity Slippage, showing just how obsessed he's become with wanting to defeat the player. After his Heel Realization during the climax, they return back to normal to signify that he's back to his old self again.
• Prayer of the Faithless:
  • In the Tired and Judged routes, Aeyr and Mia's face portraits change to remove the shine in their eyes, showing that they hit emotional rock bottom due to killing each other. According to the developer, this something they have in common with Vanessa, who has already hit rock bottom a long time ago.
  • Similarly, Amalie's eyes only shine in flashback cutscenes before her community forcibly removed her powers, showing that this event weighs heavily on her.
• Yurika Kirishima of Rival Schools has these almost all the time, largely because she's a reluctant Lady of War and her younger brother Kurow's a domineering Psycho for Hire.
• In Valkyria Chronicles, Alicia has this when she is in Valkyria mode in Chapter 14.
• In WarioWare Gold and Get It Together!, Ashley has dull red eyes, to signal her quiet and gloomy personality.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, once you get a close look at Moebius N without his usual mask, it becomes apparent that the one difference between him and our hero Noah aside from hairstyle is the lack of eye highlights. Notably, Moebius M, who is Mio's counterpart and N's lover, does not share this trait. A series of flashbacks later on reveals the exact reason for this.
• Yandere Simulator: Students who've had their minds broken through Cold-Blooded Torture have this look. You can then take them to school and ask them to perform a Murder-Suicide. The Villain Protagonist herself can have this if she becomes "visibly insane", though it's less unhappiness and more the Mask of Sanity slipping, revealing her true nature as a murderous psychopath.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Cammy Meele sports this kind of eyes. She's constantly falling asleep/waking up, so it's likely to represent that she's perpetually half-sleep.
• Danganronpa:
  • In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair's last chapter, Hajime and others are left with empty eyes after being given the Awful Truth and left with the Sadistic Choice of having to stay in the virtual world and being under Junko's control or escape with the risk of losing their memories and reverting back into Ultimate Despair.
  • In Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls, Monaca's last effort to make Komaru past the Despair Event Horizon is showing her parents' corpses effectively turning her eyes blank.
• Ayumi Tachibana has these as her default expression in Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind. Considering that Yoko Kojima, the murder victim, was her best friend, it's a pretty justifiable expression. Her homeroom teacher Tatsuya Hibino also has these as well, for similar reasons.
• When this trope is in play in Fate/stay night, it generally means the character is so broken by that point, they're practically dead inside. For instance, Souichirou Kuzuki does not have light in his eyes at any point during any route. Nor does he smile, or show any expression at all. He only has an important role in UBW, and his character is explored enough that it's understandable.
  • Kotomine Kirei has these all the time as well; both no irises and both no eye reflection. He had them ten years ago back when he was younger, too. It's most likely a reflection of his personality the same way as Shiki's above—that he's an "empty" person. Kiritsugu's are drawn the same way and probably for a similar reason.
  • Sakura Matou likewise has eyes like this—a result of being tortured and raped since age five by, respectively, her adoptive grandfather and brother.
• Yukitsuki and Shizuku from Fragment's Note. Especially creepy due to their respective eye colors; purple for Yukitsuki, and a weird black-red meld for Shizuku.
• Little Busters!:
  • In Komari's bad end, she has dull eyes during the brief moment that she shows her "sad face" instead is the silver lining of a very, very dark cloud.
  • Also, Kud near the end of her route. Her eyes light up again when Riki speaks to her, though, and she ultimately gets better.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. Poor Athena gets these when a particular incident in her past is brought up... and, during the flashback, her thousand-yard stare right after the actual murder. Unsettling, at the very least.
• Same with Kotonoha from School Days. She gets better but only briefly.
  • Koto has them in the two bad endings involving her (when she's Spurned into Suicide and when she cuts off Sekai's throat and kills her), but Sekai has those too in the original game. Only once, but it's more than enough: it's during the other bad ending, the one where she stabs Makoto to death.
    • However, in the new PlayStation endings where Sekai kills Kotonoha by either pushing her in front of a train or stabbing her off-screen, she does not have these eyes. This implies that while Kotonoha is effectively Yandere in her bad endings, Sekai is sane in hers, except for the Makoto-killing one.
    • Makoto gets them in Cross Days. See them here.◊ For worse, it's during quite the Tear Jerker scene: when you fail to get Yuuki's good ending — which means, Yuuki leaves Makoto's life completely and despite his own love for Makoto... who then gets these eyes as he crosses the Despair Event Horizon.
• Shining Song Starnova:
  • Nemu Akimoto's eyes lose their reflective sheen whenever she slips into a Yandere trance.
  • Julie Watanabe briefly sports these while recovering in the hospital after a crazed fan tried to murder her in her route.
• Kouta Meoshi in Sweet Fuse: At Your Side has flat black eyes with no highlights and no visible differentiation between iris and pupil. He's the only character whose eyes are drawn in this style, which serves to highlight his withdrawn, depressed demeanor.
• In Tsukihime, this is what Kohaku's facade looks like every now and then by the end of Hisui's ending; however, rather than appearing sad, it's actually rather creepy.
• When They Cry:
  • Happens in Higurashi: When They Cry frequently; Satoko (once shown above) gets these when she is in the hands of her uncle, and Rena when it's her turn to break and when she's under influence the syndrome or remembering her dealings with Oyashiro-sama. It happens to Rika whenever she dies. Or when anyone dies, for that matter.
  • Umineko: When They Cry:
    • Battler gets shineless eyes during his Heroic BSoD in the anime.
    • Beatrice gets the same eyes after Arc 4, where she can't leave the board until someone wins. This persists into the fifth arc when she becomes a hopeless, living doll. Also, Battler, when he gets trapped in a logic error.

Web Animation

• The Amazing Digital Circus: Pomni's eyes go from colorful pinwheels to indistinct squiggles when she is feeling particularly stressed or upset.
• RWBY: When Ironwood and Oscar argue about Salem, Oscar suggests that Ironwood is becoming as dangerous as Salem. Oscar calls him 'James' for the first time. Ironwood nods to himself and informs Oscar that only friends call him 'James'. His eyes suddenly lose all their eye shine to become dull and flat; he then tells Oscar to call him 'General', whips out his gun, and shoots the boy off the ledge they're standing on. His eyes remain completely dull as he watches Oscar fall. Volume 8 and supplementary material reveal that this is a visual indicator of when his Semblance Mettle is active, as he uses it to enforce his less moral decisions. In the episodes "Risk" and "Creation", he engages it full time to go through with his decision to threaten to destroy Mantle, making his eyes dull and flat right up until the moment when he lets it go when he thinks he has Penny, and in "Worthy", he switches between the two while talking to Winter.

Web Comics

• Bittersweet Candy Bowl does this with Lucy after Mike completely destroys his friendship with her. Her eyes turn from bright and sparkly like everyone else's to dull and flat, and they don't get better until she returns in Volume 6.
• Learning with Manga! FGO's version of Gudako has dull, lifeless eyes, but they're more a sign of her inhuman depravity.
• Neko: The Cat: Michiko's eyes become dull, blank black in the immediate aftermath of her mother's suicide, and are especially prominent in the wedding photo of her father and her stepmother.
• Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid: Haeyeong's eyes are practically monochromatic after what he witnessed during the Yeonhaeju massacre.

Western Animation

• Lemongrab of Adventure Time. Seeing as how he's perpetually unhappy and has problems relating to people in social situations, it's understandable. (Of course, they'll get bigger and more expressive if you bother him enough...) Interestingly, his eyes are USUALLY like this, even when he's screaming.) He's one of the few examples where completely dull eyes are hilarious because his facial expressions often don't match his SCREAMING tone of voice.
• Daria. Although the style of the show leaves most characters' eyes simplistic looking, hers seem flatter and more expressionless compared to everyone else's.
• In Motorcity, when a Burner succumbs to the effect of the Terra's gas pod and sees their greatest fears, their eyes go all black with a white dot (the opposite of their eyes' color palette).
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode Twilight's Kingdom Part 2:
  • Very briefly, but after Tirek drains Twilight, the color in her eyes goes to dull grey. Once Discord gives her the medallion and it's revealed to be the final key needed to open the box, her eyes and those of her friends are returned to normal.
  • Also happens to the other ponies and Discord when Tirek drains their magic. When the mane characters are locked in the cage, Spike is the only one whose eyes are normal.
  • It happens to Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, as well. If one watches closely as the Princesses are released and their magic is restored, their eyes are duller in color than when we saw them get sent to Tartarus, indicating they sensed when their magic became Tirek's, and lost hope. When their magic is returned, their eyes return to normal.
• Stu in Rugrats has these when he's lost control of his life.
• In Tangled: The Series, 4-year-old Varian is depicted that way when Rapunzel accidentally travels to the past. He doesn't say anything and spends his brief cameo looking tired and listless even as he sucks on a lollipop.
• Quilby from Wakfu has one of these after witnessing the 12 royal members of the World of 12 bicker selfishly amongst themselves about the minor details of who will pay for when his people escape from the dimension. How the camera focuses on his eyes at this time heavily suggests he is not pleased.

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