Hiding Behind Your Bangs

Scheming; Solitary; Shy.

Common in modelling as well as fiction, this is when a person's hair intentionally covers one of their eyes for symbolic purposes. Sometimes it's just for style, while other times it might function as an Eyepatch of Power, or cover a disfigurement such as horrible scarring or a blind eye (in which case its removal may serve as The Reveal).

It frequently serves as some kind of symbol:

• To show deception or concealment (more prosaically, it could be literally covering up something the person doesn't want to be seen such as a Magical Eye).
• To show vulnerability or introversion, by acting as a fragile shield or barrier, e.g., the character is an asocial loner.
• To show that the character is shy and demure.

It may only happen for one scene, or it may be a permanent feature of a character. May be a consequence of Slipknot Ponytail. If the style sticks through all sorts of action, it veers into Improbable Hair Style territory.

Contrast Hidden Eyes, where a character's eyes are temporarily in shadow to indicate a change in their emotional state — this is usually a more permanent effect and can mean many things.

For the real use of hair in a Scenery Censor situation, see Godiva Hair. When a character's bangs are used to hide physical abnormality, it's Hide Your Otherness.

Compare Oddly Visible Eyebrows. See Eye-Obscuring Hat when it's a hat that conceals the eyes of a character and Eyes Out of Sight when both of a character's eyes are almost always hidden.

For bangs that emphasize a character's sensual nature, see Sultry Bangs.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In .Hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet the Vagrant A.I. Morté uses her bangs to conceal her left eye which reveals her to have heterochromia as well as facial discoloration from The Virus.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Meme Kakure is shy to such a degree that, since infancy, her instinctive response to intense embarrassment or being the center of attention is to flee using stuffed animals as Ninja Logs. Accordingly she wears her bangs low enough to cover her eyes and is highly sensitive to her face being seen to the point that she routinely prioritizes her bangs over other embarrassments, such as her skirt being blown up by wind, or even her own physical safety. To date the number of people who have seen Meme's face in full can be counted on one hand. Even Meme's own parents haven't seen her face since she was a baby.
  • Uto also tends to wear her hair over one eye, though in her case it's just to evoke the mysterious and aloof appearance of a Wandering Minstrel.
• Yuzuru Otonashi from Angel Beats! wore his long hair over his left eye when he was still alive, symbolizing his antisocial personality at the time. He cut his hair to the short hairstyle we're familiar with when he decided to go back to school because his ill little sister's death motivated him to become a doctor.
• Annie Leonhart from Attack on Titan. Her bangs often conceal her right eye, symbolizing her closed-off and secretive nature. She's actually a Titan agent sent to infiltrate the military. Her long bangs help conceal her face during her rampage as the Female Titan.
• One of Gen's friends from Barefoot Gen uses her hair to cover half of her face; in this case, that half is burnt by the atomic radiation from the Hiroshima Bombing and the eye on that side is sealed shut.
• In Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin, both Number Nine and Smile have their hair like this. It's likely to show that they're both villains with a hidden agenda.
• In Beelzebub, Hilda's bangs cover her super-sensitive left eye.
• Black Butler:
  • Ciel Phantomhive's bangs are more dense over his right eye which usually has an Eyepatch of Power over it to conceal his Deal with the Devil contract with Sebastian.
  • Freckles aka Doll has bangs that fall over a majority of one side of her face to cover some sort of disfigurement or scarring and a very damaged eye.
• Gauche from Black Clover is deceptive/concealing. His left eye is normally covered. It isn't real and instead contains a magic mirror that accumulates magic so he can augment his mirror spells.
• The eponymous doctor from Black Jack. Oddly enough, it's not there to cover the nasty-looking scar on his face. Normally it happens when he's pretending to be greedy and extort money from someone in order for them to come to some kind of realization.
• Bleach
  • The shy and withdrawn Chad has bangs that often cover one or both of his eyes depending on the scene
  • Kira's hair covers a large part of his face, usually including one of his eyes.
• Ryoko Takeuchi from Blue Seed (probably to make her look cool because it makes her look like a one-eyed sharpshooter).
• In Brave10, Jinpachi's dreads cover up one eye, adding to his mystery, whereas Rokuro and Nanakuma's takes emphasize their distant personalities.
• A few characters in Bungo Stray Dogs have this, for varying reasons. In Kouyou it seems to give a sultry look, while a minor character who sported this named Ace was hinted to be sneaky and untrustworthy.
• Buso Renkin:
  • The homunculus Washio has multiple blond bangs covering his left eye, giving him a predatory look that fits with his hawk Animal Motif.
  • The ninja Alchemist Warrior Shinobu Negoro has a large, triangular bang covering his left eye that symbolizes his fighting style that relies on concealment, dirty tricks and his Extra-Dimensional Shortcut powers.
• Miata from Claymore. It accentuates her Ax-Crazy status.
• Vicious from Cowboy Bebop. Interestingly, besides making him look pensive and brooding, his bangs usually flop over his left eye— the same eye Spike lost in an accident.
• Lingyu Bao of Cynthia the Mission's hair covers his left eye or rather the scar where it used to be.
• Kyōtarō Ichikawa of The Dangers in My Heart keeps his left eye covered by his bangs, highlighting his reclusive and shy nature (And most likely his inner Chuuni Byou mentality). Whenever Yamada calls attention to his left eye being shown, he's quick to put his hair back over it. An extra Twitter chapter even compares his resemblance to Kitaro.
• Decim from Death Parade hides his right eye under thick bangs. It serves to make him look distant, deceptive, and mysterious, and also serves as a veil to separate him from humans since he is an Arbiter of the afterlife. In the Grand Finale, we finally see what’s underneath: his eye is normal. Chiyuki brushes his hair aside after he breaks down in sorrow, expressing his human empathy for the first time. The veil has effectively been parted.
• D from Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure has one long lock of hair that covers her right eye. This is sort of intentional, as her right eye doesn't look anything like a normal eye (and is possibly non-functional), and it would seriously creep people out to look at it all day.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Erza's hair usually covers her right eye, which is false and magical.
  • Freed hides his Magical Eye with his hair and only uncovers it when he uses his darkness magic to transform.
  • Rogue's bangs cover the right side of his face, due to aloofness.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Hatori uses his bangs to partially hide his left eye, as it was blinded when Akito attacked him during a temper tantrum.
  • When she was younger, Arisa Uotani was an antisocial delinquent and her bangs hid her right eye. While she has kept the hairstyle in high school, she became more mature and sociable thanks to Tohru's friendship and Kyoko's influence.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • In The Conqueror Of Shamballa, Roy Mustang uses his bangs to cover his eyepatch.
• Tsubaki from Future Diary. Her right eye is almost always covered by her hair. In the anime, it is also perpetually closed after she is imprisoned by the cult, perhaps implying that it is missing or nonfunctional. In the short scenes of her as a child she has both eyes open.
• Ikumi Kaidou from GaoGaiGar has his hair covering half of his face at all times. This foreshadows the fact that he's much more important to the plot than he initially lets on. Since Palus Abel has the same hair, presumably Kaidou's fa- er, moth- parent Abel has it too. Given that Soldato J also is afflicted with this trope after his helmet is broken and his eyes revealed one could argue that it's a trait of everyone from their homeworld.
• The title character of GeGeGe no Kitarō lost his left eye as a baby, and combs his hair over the empty socket.
• Lin from Ghost Hunt has one of these, which is meant to show that he's being standoffish and reclusive from the others. However, he doesn't change the hairstyle even as he begins to open up.
• Gintama: Takasugi has bangs over his damaged left eye, which is also covered in bandages.
• In the Gungrave anime, Grave sometimes adopts this look in order to hide the nasty mess of scars where his left eye used to be.
• Ichimoku Ren from Hell Girl. The eye he covers up with his hair can be transplanted anywhere, essentially giving him the ability to see anything at any time. The eye can be visible or invisible at his whim, so in addition to being able to see whatever he wants he can scare the everliving hell out of whoever he needs to scare.
• Seras Victoria spends so much time in volume 7 of the manga Hellsing with one of her eyes covered by her hair that she looks like a cyclops. This, of course, occurred at the same time that she Took a Level in Badass and makes her look even scarier. Since she was also recovering from a double dose of Eye Scream at the time, it is quite possible that the concealed eye hadn't healed yet while hidden...
• Luxembourg, the calm, polite and elegant Princely Young Man from Hetalia: Axis Powers, has bangs that cover his right eye completely.
• Shirasaka Koume in THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls has this in the mysterious and shy girl variety. It raises the shock value when her Creepy Child side shows itself to anyone for the first time.
• Mikael from I'm Gonna Be an Angel! has his left side of face always covered with bangs, even though his left eye is still oddly visible. But a translucent hair is kinda a standard in this series. Also, his bangs covering half of his face may serve to underline his ambiguous nature. Or just add to his overall bishiness
• Inazuma Eleven:
  • Kazemaru has bangs over his left eye. At first they don't really seem meaningful, besides making him more attractive than he already is, but later it's revealed he has serious insecurities under high pressure due to his inabillity to catch up with the rest of his teammates, which leads him to go mad for power at the end of the second arc.
  • Haizaki and Yagihara from Ares. The latter appears a little shy, while the former is an Aloof Ally who wants to take revenge over an educational programme which changed his friend for the worse. He used to be more cheerful in his childhood, when he didn't have peek-a-bangs.
• Tomoko Kuroki in It's Not My Fault I'm Not Popular! has them. Her other eye becomes less obscured when excited or emotional and she has it less often in general in later chapters
• Shouko Aizawa from Jewelpet Sunshine; a solitary type who doesn't have many close friends, except for her delinquent group. There's also a concealment metaphor, as she acts extremely tough, but turns very mushy when she falls in love, much to her embarrassment.
• Ishigami from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has this in the present, but flashbacks show that his hair was much shorter in middle school. His profile states that they represent his fear of others and are a way to block anything he doesn't want to see.
• Kengan Ashura: Retsudo Katahara has bangs that completely cover his right eye. As the Commander of his father's personal army, his distinctly asymmetric hairstyle sets him apart from his subordinates and marks him as a top-notch fighter among his already unbelievably strong peers, as this means that he has to fight with one eye closed.
• Megumi from Komori-san Can't Decline! used to have bangs that covered both of her eyes, but she started pulling her hair back at Komori's suggestion. She keeps one side covered because it looks cool.
• Land of the Lustrous:
  • The Amethyst twins each cover up opposite sides of their faces with their hair, so that they look like mirror images.
  • Ghost Quartz covers the left side of their face, probably leaning into their quiet nature.
• Sucy in Little Witch Academia has bangs over one eye, as she's the creepiest of the protagonists.
• Precia Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Flashbacks show that she only had this after she went evil and insane trying to revive her daughter.
• Chimera from MÄR has hair covering the conglomeration of eyes on the side of her face.
• Izumi from Martian Successor Nadesico (shy type; afraid of relationships due to tragedies in her past).
• Allelujah Haptism of Mobile Suit Gundam 00. The eye covered switches sides when his Superpowered Evil Side takes control. With each personality, it takes on a different meaning. Nice Allelujah gets the emo style, and psycho Hallelujah gets the deceptive style. When both sides agree to work together, he slicks back his hair and becomes a total badass.
• Ginko from Mushishi. He's got an empty/black eye under it. This is a secondary result of his transformation into a mushishi.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Reiko Yanagi has peek-a-bangs over the left side of her face. The trope in this case best accentuate her tendency to be "strange" (her Quirk is named Poltergeist, so her appearance takes cues from Japanese portrayals of ghosts and spirits).
  • Shouta Aizawa sometimes has one or both eyes hidden behind his long, stringy bangs, possibly a slight allusion to his introverted nature. His hair floats up when he activates Erasure, though.
• Mikoto Urabe in Mysterious Girlfriend X is sometimes this way, and sometimes has bangs that cover both of her eyes, and is more antisocial than shy.
• Naruto:
  • Deidara hides a scope on his left eye used for long-range observation, although he loses his "power" during his final battle after his plan with the C2 Dragon backfired.
  • Kakashi used to have this as a child. His bangs covered his left eye as if to foreshadow the trauma conga line that eye would eventually be exposed to: First getting it cut up in Gaiden, then years of over exertion through use of the Sharingan, and finally Madara pulling it out of Kakashi's skull in a single move. Fortunately for Kakashi, the eye Naruto gave him to replace the Sharingan seems to be a keeper.
  • Nagato had bangs that covered both of his eyes up until Jiraiya trained him, and after that point had the shy/emo version of these.
  • As an adult, Sasuke's bangs cover the left side of his face in order to conceal his Rinnegan.
  • Orochimaru's hair covers his left eye in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. It's worth noting that in some video games, such as Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja revolution three, Orochimaru also sports this look.
• The painfully shy Nodoka from Negima! Magister Negi Magi started out with bangs that covered her eyes. Her eyes start peeking through as she becomes braver and more confident.
• Atori in Noein has long blond hair covering half his face. The dub's Hilarious Outtakes poke fun at it:
  "Why is this banana on my head?"
  "I'm in luck! This gel keeps my hair pointing upwards!"
• One Piece:
  • Sanji has his left eye hidden behind his hair even in his childhood flashbacks. Whether he actually had a left eye had been the subject of debate until Word of God stated that he does, in fact, have a perfectly functional eye hidden beneath his hair. After the Time Skip, said left eye is revealed, but now his right eye is covered. It turned out both of his spiral-shaped eyebrows curl to the right (so they look like "@_ @_"), hence why he'd want to cover one of them. Sanji's eye being covered has actually become a Running Gag in the series. For example, he was once held upside down, where his hair would not be able to cover his eye. The speech bubble covered it instead.
  • Later when we meet Sanji's biological family , the Vinsmokes, its revealed that all of his siblings have the same hairstyle covering their right eye similar to Sanji post-timeskip. The only exception being the youngest son, Yonji, who unlike the other Vinsmoke children does not have this, instead styling his hair towards the back of his head.
  • Played With in regards to Charlotte Pudding, when it's revealed that her hair is actually hiding a Third Eye. One of her many older sisters, Charlotte Smoothie, is a more straightforward version covering her right eye and plays into the sexy version.
  • Lilith the Evil, one of Vegapunk's six "satellite" bodies, also has her right eye covered by bangs in order to emphasize her trickster-like Lovable Rogue nature. She sensibly keeps both eyes uncovered when operating heavy machinery, however.
• Um Jina from My Heart Is Beating has a huge fringe that completely covers one eye and almost the other one. This is because she's still not living life the way she wants to. When she comes to terms with her problem(s) she starts tying it back.
• Xerxes Break from PandoraHearts is missing his left eye and hides his empty socket under his hair.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: In an example original to the anime, current Kimberly Magic Academy headmistress Esmeralda is depicted in a flashback in "Arise" with her bangs covering one eye, as Five-Second Foreshadowing of her part in the Plot-Triggering Death of Chloe Halford.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena: Vulnerabiltity and Drama variant. Anthy, whose hair is always in a Prim and Proper Bun, is shown late in the series Letting Her Hair Down in situations where she's especially broken or vulnerable due her status as the Rose Bride. During the final battle between Utena and Akio, Anthy's hair briefly takes this look to show just how utterly broken she is.
• André from The Rose of Versailles loses the use of one eye roughly halfway through the series, and subsequently covers it up with his hair for the remainder of the series. Perhaps unusually, he does experience problems with his sight as a result of this, which becomes a plot point later on.
• In Saint Beast, many characters have the style, but Cassandra's bangs are the likely the only meaningful version, obscuring his face and represent his guardedness.
• Megrez Alberich from Saint Seiya's Asgard Arc. In his case, it's meant to represent deception and concealment - namely, the fact that he's the only one aware of Hilda's brainwashing.
• In Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Kiri Komori has one, and it is often played for comic effect: "I've only been opened by Sensei before," and Don't open it!
• In The Seven Deadly Sins, the princess Elizabeth's hair covers her right eye and show more toward the shy side. Also, it hides her Magical Eye.
• Musashino Animation's manager Yuka Okitsu from Shirobako is a very reserved lady. Only when she's serious (more so than usual, at that) does she sweep her bangs out of the way.
• Angelica from Superior wears her hair this way to hide her demon eye.
• Lag Seeing from Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee hides the spirit amber that replaces his left eye with his hair bangs.
• In Tokyo Ghoul, Touka's bangs often conceal her right eye. Besides being a brooding and moody teenager, she has to conceal her true nature as a Ghoul from humans.
• Tower of God:
  • Kang Horyang. He has something that he hides: He is in fact the real Devil of the Right Hand.
  • Jue Viole Grace is the "solitary" type. His eyes are seen more often in later chapters as he begins to open up more and is eventually reunited with his friends from the second floor.
• Played for Laughs in Vandread. The resident Bishōnen Duero wears long hair covering his right eye at all times. In the second season finale, Parfeit sneaks up on him and briefly brushes his hair aside, exclaiming "I knew it!" with a content smile. Too bad the audience only sees him from behind in that shot.
• Van Fanel from The Vision of Escaflowne is a partial/borderline example: his hair isn't styled in any way and often just falls over his eyes in general, but it tends to cover one eye completely more often than not. Where it really fits, though, is in meaning, as Van hits both the "vulnerability" and the "serious Love Interest" categories
• Ai, the heroine of Wonder Egg Priority, has heterochromia, i.e. her right eye is hazel and the other is blue. It makes her stand out and feel ugly, and she gets bullied for being different; this is why she deliberately hides her blue eye under her bangs. When transfer student Koito first meets her, she is baffled that Ai sees herself as ugly, complimenting her hair and eyes until she lifts Ai's bangs and realizes why Ai's embarrassed about her appearance.
• Venoct/Orochi from Yo-kai Watch has bangs over his right eye. He's a very powerful ninja-like Yo-kai who seeks for powerful opponents to fight. Although he seems edgy at first because his description of the powerful Rubeus J matches Jibanyan's description perfectly, it turns out Rubeus J was a completely different Yo-kai after all and defeats him.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pegasus's hairdo hides the Millennium Eye that allows him to steal souls and read minds. He still has it that way after losing the eye; it fills in for an eyepatch.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL: In his human form, Alito's right eye is covered by his hair. He's kind of a Casanova Wannabe.
• Victor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky from Yuri!!! on Ice both have this hairstyle; Victor's hair covers the left side of his face while Yurio's covers his right. Yurio fits the "asocial" type due to his brash and hot-tempered personality preventing him from being friendly with anyone, while Victor nails the "seductive" type and seems to fit the "deceptive" type at first glance but it turns out that he's not as deceptive as the early episodes make him out to be.

Audio Plays

• Exit Tunes Presents ACTORS': Narcissist Shirou styles his hair to cover his eye in the Deluxe Duet Edition.

Comic Books

• Talia al Ghul, a love interest of Batman. Spoofed in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", a comedic story in Batman: Black and White, which depicts her shooting repeatedly at Batsman and missing because having one eye covered means she has no depth perception.
• In Beautiful Darkness, Timothy's hair always covers the left side of her face to hide the fact that she only has one eye.
• Throughout her numerous looks, one of the stable features of Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn is her hair always covering her right eye. To the point where, when her lover brushes her hair out of her face, he's genuinely surprised that she has a right eye.
• Hack/Slash gives us Cassandra Hack with a generous helping of Perky Goth.
• Jane in Insane Jane has this sort of hairstyle in scenes that take place in the present day, to hide the fact that she practically burned half of her face off trying to give herself superpowers, though it's difficult to say whether she styles it deliberately for this reason (she's kind of extremely delusional).
• Nightwing is often portrayed with these to the point that they are practically his trademark. That is when he is not in full badass mode.
• In Australian comic Platinum Grit, Nilson Kerr's right eye is never seen.
• Moon from Pocket God has her left eye covered by a large bang. It's very rare to see even a glimpse of her eye.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Whisper the Wolf has her hair cover the right side of her face. It's also where she places her mask when not in use.
• Oyuki from the Archie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures has this. The only time she ever showed both eyes was in a flash-forward to her in her twenties.
• Marvel Comics villainess Viper wears her hair over one eye. Like Dr. Blight (see below), this is to cover scarring on that part of the face.
• Aarik of White Sand has hair covering one of his eyes to drive home the point that he's a Tall, Dark, and Snarky master swordsman.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Pris wears her long wavy blond hair in a sultry loose style swept mostly over her left eye and cheek, which hides the beauty mark that's visible when she's dressed as Cheetah.
• X-Factor's Oracular Urchin Layla Miller. After escaping from a future mutant concentration camp where prisoners get an M branded over one eye, she steals a wig to cover her brand.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Ren Serizawa has similar hair to in MonsterVerse canon. In the penultimate chapter, rain causes one of his bangs to cover one of his eyes right before he's moved by hearing his father would be proud of him, reflecting his Not So Stoic.
• In Cabinet Man [COMPLETE Evil!Spottedleaf MAP], Spottedleaf is a cat with head fur that acts this way. Originally, it could either fit the "shy and demure" version or "religious veil" versions due to her status as a nice medicine cat. However, for most of the animation, it represents the "deceptive" variant. Spottedleaf is ruining everyone's lives while pretending to be heroic.
• It's mentioned that as a teenager, Rio wore this style in the Jem fic Deception Unveiled. Kimber thought it was just for fashion but it was actually because he was hiding bruises (presumably from Abusive Parents).
• Harry Potter And The Seven Reincarnated Spirits: One of the benefits of Erza's magical right eye is that she's immune to the fatal gaze of the basilisk. When confronting it, she (as Fay Dunbar) covers up her left eye so the immunity can be fully utilized.
• Vow of Nudity: Fiora the Forest Witch's bangs cover up her right eye, symbolizing her mischievous and untrustworthy nature.
• Amir, Zelda's bully in Zelda and the Manacle of Cahla, has long bangs that cover his left eye. Like his name^note Amir and Sheik are Arab titles, the hairstyle is a nod to Sheik. It's really to hide his heterochromia, the proof of his mixed heritage.

Films — Animation

• Kate's sister Lilly in Alpha and Omega is an example of the "shy and demure" variety. Like the Violet example, her hair is gradually pushed back to symbolize her growing confidence.
• Brave: Young Macintosh is a cocky Pretty Boy whose long hair covers one of his eyes.
• Catwoman: Hunted: In her brief appearances, Big Bad Talia al Ghul always has her right eye covered by her hair, giving her a mysterious allure, which is appropriate for her status as a Hidden Villain.
• Astrid in How to Train Your Dragon (2010). They're over her left eye when she's the toughened Viking, and away from her face when she starts warming up to Hiccup, most notably when she kisses him.
• Violet in The Incredibles did this for most of the movie (showing shyness in her case). The last few scenes show her with her hair back, symbolizing the fact that she's come to terms with herself and is more open now.
• The eponymous Kubo and the Two Strings has his hair usually covering his Eyepatch of Power, which in turn covers his empty left eye socket.
• Peg from Lady and the Tramp, probably since she's meant to represent The Chanteuse.
• Mavka: The Forest Song: Frol, the fashion-obsessed dandy assistant to Big Bad Kylina, has his purple hair cover one of his eyes, which shows how vain and foppish he is.
• Monsters, Inc.:
  • Smitty, a four-armed slug-like monster serving as one of the two janitors.
  • Monsters University: Claire Wheeler, the Cute Monster Girl announcer for the Scare Games, as part of her overall goth allure. Note that she has three eyes, though, and two are usually visible, reducing the effect of the Peek-a-Bangs.
•  Carter Murphy-Mayhew in Turning Red has this as part of his goth allure for Mei.
• Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is considered the epitome of sultry peek-a-bangs. There's only one time that we see her other eye, and that's when she reacts to the sight of the Dip.
• Wreck-It Ralph: Calhoun's hair, surprising for a marine, giving how she needs to see everything around her. Perhaps it refers to her guarded personality.

Films — Live-Action

• Angel Terminators: The sequel has the character Bullet, whose hairdo constantly obscures her right eye, even during her fight scenes. This is to date the only film starring Yukari Oshima where she sports this hairdo.
• Xia from the kung-fu film The Bastard is a male example, a kickass fighter and martial arts expert, but also a naive everyman and Nice Guy. Some DVD covers puts his style right on the front.
• Velanka, the Big Bad's lover in Casino Royale (2006) has her bangs cover her left eye, marking her as a ruthless villainess.
• Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, in particular in the first film, whose long bangs highlights his great shyness and solitary behaviour, especially as he also avoids eye-contacts most of the time.
• In Jack the Reaper, Shrinking Violet Jessie (who is implied to be being abused) usually has her hair hanging over half her face so she can hide behind it.
• Done extensively on the heroine of MirrorMask as she spends much of this artsy film looking through her bangs for essentially everyone. Also serving to contrast with her alternate universe counterpart, who has pulled back hair.
• Lee Weathers in Morgan indicating deception. She's revealed to be a Super-Soldier like Morgan.
• The Ring: While Sadako usually is The Faceless instead given her hair covers her entire face, American version Samara has moments of this◊. She even had the look while alive◊.
• Mui from Shaolin Soccer starts out as a shy girl with hair covering most of her acne-ridden face. Towards the end, she shaves her head when she joins as a replacement goalkeeper and turns out to be Beautiful All Along.
• When Peter Parker gains the evil symbiote costume in the film Spider-Man 3, one of the first things he does is brush his hair down over one eye. Oh sure, he does lots of other mean stuff — like telling Ursula to make him cookies, with nuts! — but that's your first big clue that he's going over to the dark side.

Literature

• Asher in the Anita Blake books has beautiful long golden hair that usually covers most of the right side of his body as that side is covered in burn scars from a long-ago torture session with holy water.
• In Date A Live, when she's disguised as a civilian, the spirit Kurumi Tokisaki's bangs cover her left eye because said eye looks like a golden clock and it makes her stand out.
• Urushihara from The Devil is a Part-Timer! has hair covering his right eye. This has a double meaning showing his untrustworthy nature and his lack of social skills.
• Go to Sleep (A Jeff the Killer Rewrite): As a 19-year-old Serial Killer, Jeff uses his hood to hide his identity before showing himself to Randy, and with it down, his blackened bangs still hang over his right eye, made more prominent by a left side-shave. He's also adopted a more punkish look, with piercings and black ear gauges.
• If Her Flag Breaks: Mei has this hairstyle, representing her desire to remain emotionally aloof and guarded.
• Mahiro Yasaka from Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! has the shy version, but only in the light novels; the Anime adaptations parted his hair to shift it out of his face.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
  • Upperclasswoman Vera Miligan has her bangs cut such that only her right eye is visible, which is foreshadowing that she's more than she appears. Figuratively, she turns out to be the Starter Villain of the first volume after initially approaching the heroes as an ally. In a more literal sense, the bangs hide the eye of a basilisk, her secret weapon. However, as protagonist Oliver Horn notes in his Internal Monologue, the hairstyle is too obviously a clue that one of her eyes is special: it's a distraction from her real trump card, a second basilisk eye implanted in the palm of her left hand.
  • From volume 7 on, minor character Jasmine Ames is depicted her bangs completely covering her eyes, as a visual cue to her shyness (which is only attested to in the author's notes: there wasn't time to give her much development since she's only around for two scenes).
• Speaking of pilots with peek-a-bangs, Rei Fukai from Sentou Yousei Yukikaze has this. This befits his attitude and his slightly unhealthy obsession with CO his own fighter jet.
• Something More Than Night: Stephen Swift has her hair styled to cover her right eye. The practical purpose is to hide the eye, which is her Mark of the Supernatural, from view. Symbolically, it represents her having secrets to hide, and goes with her being the Femme Fatale of the story.
• Steel Crow Saga: Xiulan uses either her bangs or a rakishly tilted hat to hide that her pact mark from binding a Shade manifested on her left eyeball.
• Ciri from The Witcher series starts wearing her hair like this in Tower of the Swallow to conceal an extremely messy shuriken-inflicted scar on her cheek. Most men interpret it as simply sexy.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who. Scenes where the Thirteenth Doctor is shaken up by something are usually accompanied by her hair becoming disarrayed and partly obscuring her face.
• This was also deliberately invoked in certain scenes in Firefly and its film Serenity where River's hair was used to obscure parts of her face during some of her less-than-lucid scenes.
• Chandler from Friends has this look in a 80's flashback, probably spoofing Mike Score from A Flock of Seagulls.
• Peter Petrelli from Heroes, in the first season, before chopping it off in Season 2 and letting it grow back in a slightly shorter fashion in Season 4. His haircut had to be written in because Milo Ventimiglia hated the long hair so much that he buzzed it all off after filming.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Taiga Hanaya doesn't sport it usually, but when he transforms into Kamen Rider Snipe, he has a neon-green bang in front of his right eye.
• In 90s Telenovela Marisol, the title character wore this hairstyle to cover up a debilitating scar she received as a child where she fell while carrying a large mirror. After she eventually has reconstructive surgery to repair it, she becomes more confident and begins modeling.
• Star Trek: Enterprise. The Mirror Universe Hoshi Sato, as befits her Femme Fatale character. Later T'Pol after she's captured, presumably to show vulnerability.
• Cameron of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles uses this sometimes; Summer Glau said that she had to deliberately train herself to not do "human" actions like brushing her hair out of her face during fight scenes, which sometimes leads to one side of her face being obscured after a battle or action sequence.
  • Thomas Dekker also wore long bangs in his eyes in the first season, evoking the flip-do worn by Edward Furlong in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This resulted in an Important Haircut after the second season opener when he killed someone.
• Velvet: Cristina adopts this hairstyle once she does her Face–Heel Turn.

Roleplay

• Harriet from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues has long, ratty hair that covers one of her eyes, showing her to be disheveled, shy, and angsty.

Tabletop Games

• Going by the beta release, Leonardo de Montreal is depicted with hair covering one eye in most of his art in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. Fits the Loner and possibly Mystical archetypes, sometimes the Secretive, but usually not the Seductive and definitely not the Shy.

Theatre

• Westeros: An American Musical: Sandor has a scar on part of his face in the original story. The fact the actor playing him doesn't have one is hidden by his hair covering part of his face, including one of his eyes.

Video Games

• Angel Starr, Matt Engarde and young Mia Fey in Ace Attorney. In Angel Starr's case, she swishes her bang over to the other eye whenever her mood changes from sweet to bitter. In Matt Engarde's case, with his hair down, he seems enthusiastic and innocent. And then he slicks it back, revealing Evil Scars, grins an evil grin, and pulls A Glass of Chianti out of Hammerspace. Eeeeevil! Mia Fey meanwhile flicks the hair out her eye just before making a particularly effective point in court.
• In Borderlands 2 the Guardian Angel's hair hangs down on the left side of her face, though it doesn't completely obscure that eye. This reflects her physical form, where her hair is pulled around to the left side of her head and tied off, completely covering that side of her face.
• Drowned Ophelia from Brütal Legend. She avoids Eyes Out of Sight with the aid of a pink hairclip that holds the other half of her bangs in place.
• Azusa Takai from Corpse Party has bangs swept over her left eye, hiding the fact that it's red. There's only one moment in the entire game series that it's visible, and that's one of the wrong endings.
• October from Cthulhu Saves the World, as a part of her Goth design, has one eye covered with her bangs.
• Oblio from Dance Central, as part of the loner archetype, covers the left side of his face with a section of his hair.
• Deltarune: In Chapter 1, Susie's bangs cover her eyes to highlight her violent, antisocial nature. However, when she opens up more and has a Heel–Face Turn, her eyes start appearing more frequently. By Chapter 2, her hair only covers her eyes when she's actively trying to be threatening (most commonly during battles).
• Shinobu from Ensemble Stars! appears to be of the mysterious variety, going with his ninja motif... until you find out he actually suffers from severe social anxiety. He even tries to claim sexual harassment when Yuta tries to see under his bangs once.
• In Fate/Grand Order, Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts finds this look attractive, leading to numerous jokes about keeping him away from Mash, Frankenstein's Monster, Anastasia, Robin Hood, and many others. He even gives the playable Master a wig in this style as his White Day present.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII had most of his hair swept to the left side even before it grew out during the 25 years he spent sleeping in a coffin. Consequently, the hair tends to at least partially cover his left eye. Especially noticable in the Remake continuity, where his redesign includes mismatched eyes: While his right eye is as red as ever, his left is now a Mad Eye with an amber outline surrounding the pupil and a dark scelera. Being a former-Turk-turned-shape-shifting-monster thanks to a certain Mad Scientist, the bangs both represent the many dark secrets Vincent is concealing as well as his introverted nature and isolation from the world around him.
  • Freya Crescent in Final Fantasy IX. The low resolution of the character models make it difficult to tell, but the CG cutscenes and her character artwork show that her hair does cover her right eye. Symbolically, it represents her vulnerability; not only is her character theme "despair", she also goes through one hell of a Trauma Conga Line over the course of the game.
  • Lulu from Final Fantasy X keeps her black hair in side-swept bangs. Aside from matching the gothic fashion she's wearing, the 'do, much like with Freya, represents her vulnerability and status as the game's resident Broken Bird.
  • Illua from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 keeps her blue hair front-swept with only a gap exposing the right side of her face. Being the Big Bad of the game, and a Manipulative Bitch at that, you better believe it symbolizes her nature has a schemer.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, Lucia and Nailah have this. In the latter's case, it's because she is able to turn other people to stone from the eye's gaze.
• In Honkai Impact 3rd, Rita Rossweisse is the only Valkyrie with this hairstyle, which covers her left eye. This serves both to accent her beauty and mark her as an antagonist, as she's introduced late in the game's Story mode as an agent of the madman Otto Apocalypse and opposes the more heroic Valkyries multiple times.
• Falcon from Hot Shots Golf Fore!. Toshi from Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip has this as well.
• Shirasaka Koume in THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls has this in the mysterious and shy girl variety. It raises the shock value when her Creepy Child side shows itself to anyone for the first time.
• KanColle has the shipgirls Hamakaze, Asashimo, Hayashimo, and Kako, although this only happens to Kako in her Kai Ni. On the Abyssal side, there are the Ka-class, Yo-class, and So-class submarines; Southern Demon, Southern War Demon, and Southern War Princess; Seaplane Tender Water Princess, and Summer Seaport Princess.
• Hanako from Katawa Shoujo hides the burn scars on her face behind her bangs.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Zexion to show his deceptive and manipulative nature. This is also shown in his title: "The Cloaked Schemer"
  • Fuu(jin), replacing the eyepatch worn by the original version (which would probably look out of place on a kid).
  • Riku has these with his long hair in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. They could arguably fit all three archetypes, but it seems they mostly represent him being a loner by choice thanks to his lingering regret over his actions in the first game.
• The King of Fighters: Iori Yagami has this, as he's somewhat of a tribute to Yashiro Nightow's character designs. NOT Emo either, as he predates the fad by several years (his debut game was in 1995).
• The Legend of Zelda
  • Veran the sorceress has them in The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages as befitting her deceptive, mystical nature.
  • Ghirahim in Skyward Sword to make him look more Bishie and to emphasize his evil, regal demeanor.
  • Granté from Breath of the Wild has them to signify his shy nature.
• Mochi of the Lonely Wolf Treat series permanently keeps her left eye hidden behind her hair. Being a cheerful and outgoing Genki Girl, she initially doesn't really fit any of the archetypes listed above, though she temporarily falls into the loner category during her depressed episode in the third and fourth chapters. The seventh chapter reveals that Mochi has heterochromia and was forced to hide her left eye due to bullying.
• In ClockUp's Maggot Baits, the "Witch" Carol has these. She's a reserved, serious, stoic main character.
• The White Mage in Mario Sports Mix has her right eye covered by pink hair. This increases her sex appeal.
• Lumine and Layer in Mega Man X8. Layer has them over both eyes, but her eyes are visible during certain reaction shots.
• Monster Madness: Carrie's hair covers one eye, contributing to her moody, asocial look.
• NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD: Ame-chan's hair almost always covers her right eye to emphasize her introverted nature. The only time where it is visible out of her KAngel streamer attire is in file008.
• Gannayev from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, possibly symbolic of his deep-seated and carefully hidden fear of letting someone see who he really is.
• Ōkami:
  • Rao. Perhaps with reason, her true form of a fox is missing her right eye.
  • When the spirit of the real Rao is leading you through the temple, both her eyes are visible and the prayer beads she wears are blue. There are blue beads on the corpse down there as well.
• Onmyōji (2016):
  • Yasha sports this style post-Awakening, possibly for further sexual appeal than he already has. This could also be viewed as the loner variety, seeing as he suffers from extreme loneliness.
  • Ichimokuren has his long bangs over his right eye, or the area where normally a right eye belongs.
• Pokémon:
  • Gym Leaders Falkner, Cress, and Flannery, and Champion Cynthia.
  • Some Pokémon may appear to be this way due to the angle of their sprites in the 2D games (i.e. Gardevoir, Staraptor), but they're perfectly symmetrical from the front.
  • Darkrai has this effect properly with its white smoke-hair. In the 2D handheld games, its right eye can be seen clearly in its back sprite for reasons unknown, but the anime and all its 3D models make it clear that the eye is covered.
  • Litwick has this with melted candle wax.
  • In the remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Aqua Admin Shelly has this going on.
  • Absol sports this look when Mega Evolved.
  • Gladion from Pokémon Sun and Moon has them, likely reflecting his status as a loner.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus has Volo and Cogita, who are heavily implied to be distant ancestors of Cynthia and thus have their hair styled just like her.
• PsyCard: The demon self's icon in Friend's Quest, has her left eye covered by her hair. The normal self has that eye covered by an eyepatch.
• Some of the hairstyles in Rock Band cover up one of the character's eyes, most obviously the Emover and the Femover.
• Skullgirls:
  • Squigly has this hairstyle for a completely justifiable reason: it's covering her missing eye.
  • Parasoul has this hairstyle, likely to emphasize her general aloofness in attitude.
• Rosalina in Super Mario Galaxy. She did not have one as a little girl in her storybook, however. Her iconic bangs start growing after the realization that her family is long dead.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • Gilliam Yeager. He has something to hide in every appearance, although at this point his biggest secret is that he's had so many appearances in different continuities, all being the same Gilliam.
  • Lemon Browning sports this look, and sure enough turns out to be an Undead Alternate Universe Robot Clone of Excellen. Incidentally, the other UAURC, Wodan Ymir, manages a similar look by losing half of his mask in his final scene.
• Rokurou from Tales of Berseria has the deceptive variety, though in the party's favor - it hides the corruption on his face that would easily out him as a Daemon. Appropriately for a Yaksha (war-Daemon), it tends to blow out of the way during battle, including his Mystic Arte cut-ins.
• Trails Series:
  • Campanella has this as the deceptive type, as Enforcer 0 of Ouroboros, known as "The Fool," and one of the most mysterious members of the group.
  • Ein Selnate can also be said to have the deceptive type. She is the head of the Gralsritter of the Septian Church, but few know this and she is also known be a Nun Too Holy and a Troll at times.
• Undertale has Mettaton EX, not only fitting his role as Mr. Fanservice but also keeping with the left eye motif. His NEO form reveals that his right eye is incomplete or missing.

Web Animation

• In Becky Prim, Becky herself has one bang concealing her right eye, which is both of an asocial-loner variety, and later on becomes a concealing type when she is turned into a ghost. It was used to reveal her dead eye to Jessica and her posse, sending them to an alternate dimension of psychological torture.
• Burakku from Burakku Channel has a bang covering the left side of his face. Considering his trickster nature, he fits into the “deception” meaning of this trope.
• In Red vs. Blue, Project Freelancer agents Carolina, Connecticut, and South Dakota all have these. Given that all three wear helmets with their Powered Armor on a regular basis, it's a mystery how they manage to avoid it blocking their vision or turning into helmet hair.
• RWBY: Cinder has bangs that cover her left eye either partially or totally depending on the angle, both to make her look more sultry and because as an archer it helps her aim. It also foreshadows the loss of her left eye in the Volume 3 finale, and after that volume, it's completely covered to hide the disfiguring scars.
• Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Tari has short, blue hair that covers her left eye, representing her shy personality. She still has this hairstyle in Meta Runner.

Webcomics

• Aqua Regia: Daniel has his Barbarian Long Hair covering his left side of the face which has a huge X-shaped scar.
• Bastard: The main character, Jin, has this hairstyle, covering his glass eye.
• Agent 32 in Cheer!. When we finally see the covered eye, there's a nasty scar going over it.
• Nimmel Feenix from Dominic Deegan had his right eye slashed to uselessness, so he combed his previously slicked-back hair in such a way as to cover it up. His hair also covers terrible facial scarring. It took two story arcs of Character Development for him to work through the issues connected to the scar; first the Survivor Guilt ^note three of his friends were murdered by the same person who inflicted it on him, and then the Freakiness Shame ^note turns out that werewolves think scars are pretty cool, especially scars received fighting to defend the innocent, ending with an Important Haircut that exposed his whole face.
• The Operator in The Easy Breather also uses this hairstyle to hide a scarred face.
• El Goonish Shive: Noah has bangs that cover one of his eyes at almost all times. It's eventually revealed that he's hiding a black, almond-shaped uryuom eye underneath his hair, because he's a Half-Human Hybrid. (Except sometimes it's not, possibly due to either seyunolu shapeshifting ability, or the later-revealed ability of uryuoms to project an illusion of a normal human.)
• Erma: Erma, though her eyes are shown now and then. Her mother has it as well, and the one time Erma is shown trying to cut her hair it instantly grows back to its normal length. Heck, when she wanted to go into costume one Halloween and tried to put it up in a clip, the clip snapped off instantly. So she ended up resorting to a bear trap which just barely holds her hair into place.
• The Far Side Of Utopia has Tyler whose hair always covers his right eye. Naomi tends to gain this when fighting, it's more Hidden Eyes as it frequently switches which eye is visible.
• Meredith the Goth from The Fuzzy Five sports this look, as lampshaded here.
• Geilen from Garanos is shown with these after revealing that she's The Mole.
• Jabberwokky of Grrl Power has her falling bangs frequently covering her right eye. At least when she's not in a fight, where the wind of her fast moves usually uncovers it.
• The Guide to a Healthy Relationship: Julian wears their long hair covering up as much of their face as possible without going blind due to having some serious psychological issues that have them prefer to not be seen by people all that much. Or avoid interacting with people.
• Homestuck's Vriska Serket had her left eye covered by hair when we first see her. She also wears glasses with one grey lens. Previously she had a Magical Eye with seven pupils but she lost it and got scarred on half of her face when a cueball exploded in her face.
• Sal Walters of It's Walky!, symbolizing her incapacity for introspection and subsequent lack of perspective. When she goes through a spurt of character development and learns to see things from other points of view, she goes back to having two eyes.
• Never Satisfied has Lucy and Siobhan. Lucy's bangs occasionally hang over their right eye, which is also covered by an eyepatch. When their bangs cover their eyepatch, it's usually in a moment of vulnerability.
• Hiro of Overlord Academy has the entire right side of his face completely obscured by bright blue bangs, leading one to wonder how he can see well enough to use the scope of that sniper rifle.
• The titular protagonist of Rain often wears hairstyles that cover one of her eyes. To the point that it's become a Running Gag for other characters point out whenever both her eyes are visible. The hair style compliments her initial Shrinking Violet personality.
• Rebirth:
  • One of Neo’s eyes is always hidden behind his bangs. It makes him seem even more mysterious.
  • Siobhan, like her Riverside Extras counterpart, has bangs over her left eye.
• Bay from Sailor Sun, likely symbolizing her discomfort with living as a girl.
• Taisei of Sakana usually has bangs that obscure both of his eyes instead, but sometimes one of them peeps out, depending on what makes the expression work. The reason for the concealment is that his eyes are naturally set in a particularly crazed expression at odds with his inherently friendly personality, so he grows his hair out to keep from putting people off.
• In Weak Hero, Gray's hair often falls over his right eye, especially in moments that emphasise his aloofness or hostility.

Web Videos

• Armand Trueman from Flander's Company has an eye covered by a lock about half the time. There are plenty of jokes about his "beautiful hair" in the series.

Western Animation

• Maddie Flour in Amphibia has one bang covering her right eye (as a result of messy, unkempt hair), which was only later shown in a flashback, where she had tidier hair and both her eyes visible.
• The short "Bijeli Osvetnik" (The White Avenger) has a bar singer named Kitty whose black hair covers the right side of her face. In one scene her hair actually shifts to the opposite side for a second, showing her expression changing from a warm smile, to a scheming grin.
• Captain Planet's Dr. Blight had this hairdo, and hers covers horrible facial scarring. This was even used as a feature of the toy based on the character- you could "rotate" her plastic bangs and reveal the scars.
• Although she only has one big eye, Leela's hairstyle in Futurama covers one half of her eye and is meant to suggest this style. According to the DVD commentaries, it is used as a cheat for the animators. They can animate Leela's facial expressions as if she has a second eye that's covered when it is too difficult to give her an expression with one eye that the audience can read.
• Gordon Gibble from Kick Buttowski has this hairstyle, of the "deception" variety.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012):
  • The dog Zoe Trent (over her right eye).
  • The Biskit Twins. Their hairstyles consist of the long fringe parted to one side covering the eyes to be a typical "emo" hairstyle.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • Fluttershy. True to her name, the bangs help accentuate her shy Shrinking Violet nature.
  • Princess Celestia also has these, though what hers represent is open to fan interpretation.
  • Rarity in "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", only to hide that she wears fake eyelashes. Oh, and she took a bite of the cake.
  • Marble Pie, another Shrinking Violet, has these as well. Unlike other ponies whose bangs change positions depending on the angle they're facing, the left side of her face is always kept covered by her mane.
• Nicky from Pepper Ann, of the shy kind given she's a nerdy Prim and Proper Lady.
• Amethyst from Steven Universe. Though this is mostly due to her hair simply being wild and unkempt, it may also show vulnerability from some of her insecurities most notably seen when she distinctly hides behind her hair during her emotional breakdown at the end of On the Run.
• Terra from Teen Titans (2003), as symbolism that she was working for Slade. (The eye her hair covers is the one that, in Slade's case, is missing. The first sign that she was actually The Mole.)
• Fifi from Tiny Toon Adventures (which is basically a long version of the quiff worn by her inspiration Pepé Le Pew, to pull off the seductive version of this look).
• Total Drama:
  • The scruffy Revenge of the Island intern has medium-length hair that covers his face but for one eye. Along with his slightly oversized clothes, earring, and countable chin hairs, it makes him look unkempt in a cool way.
  • Mal is the sole evil alternate personality of Mike and he has his own characteristic haircut. Where Mike's pompadour gives him an open appearance, Mal has their hair flipped down to cover one of his eyes and make him look like he has something to hide. Which he does.
• Pete White of The Venture Brothers is a male example. It's fitting for a guy whose tastes are stuck in The '80s. He was even designed after the singer of The Human League.

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