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Isn't wearing opaque glasses self-defeating?
They're not coke-bottle glasses he's wearing, they're paperweights in a frame. Glasses in anime, manga, comics and animation usually come in four forms — there are tiny little things that don't get in the way (see Cool Mask), so-clear-they're-almost-not-there spectacles worn by pretty girls (a.k.a. meganekko) and handsome boys, lenses meant to hide the character's eyes from anyone who wants to get a glimpse at their soul ( Scary Shiny Glasses), and then there are Nerd Glasses.
Nerd Glasses are two four-inch disks that hide the wearer's eyes behind blank white circles, that can be marked either with thin black spiraling lines, or, in the western variant, small or hazy dots denoting pupils. They almost invariably indicate that a character is painfully geeky in some way, and is very likely Blind Without 'Em.
Female characters with Nerd Glasses often reveal that they were Beautiful All Along upon their removal (see Naru from Love Hina, Princess Dia in the first season of Sailor Moon, and Haruhi in the first episode of Ouran High School Host Club). Male characters may be The Short Guy with Glasses.
Tends to be found more often in comedy than in drama.
Contrast with Meganekko. Nerd Glasses play a part in the Geeky Glasses plot.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Princess Dia (as noted above) from Sailor Moon. In the manga, this leads the girls to speculate how another nerd, Umino, might look without his own ever-present Nerd Glasses. Word Of God states that yes, Umino is completely Bishōnen without them.
- Miyuki Miyazawa in the TV series version of All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku.
- Miyami Soshigaya in Cyber Team in Akihabara.
- Sakura Yamazaki in Blue Seed only wears her nerd glasses when fighting demons.
- Kururu from Keroro Gunsou.
- Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club sported these for the first few minutes of the first episode, because she had lost her contact lenses.
- Officer Shinshi in Patlabor.
- Naru Narusegawa in her "nerd mode" in Love Hina. However, once Naru has obviously become the love interest in the story, The Glasses Gotta Go — and when they are seen afterwards, they are no longer opaque and spiralled, but simple clear Meganekko circles. Also, in the manga, she gives her Nerd Glasses to Shinobu as a "good luck" token when the younger girl is taking exams; later, Motoko uses them for the same purpose while studying to get into Tokyo U.
- Mousse from Ranma ˝ is a borderline exception — he has the glasses, but he's not a nerd. He is, however, an obsessive Stalker with a Crush with no common sense. He's Blind Without 'Em, yet never puts them on until after he has, for example, spent five minutes talking to a tree under the assumption that it's actually Shampoo. He also has a habit of taking them off to attempt something dramatic, then doing something stupid because he can't see.
- In the anime version of Urusei Yatsura, the first New Year's Special has Momotaro, a legendary Japanese hero, wearing a set of these. In fact, he looks a lot like a somewhat younger Mousse.
- Gadgeteer Genius Parfet from Vandread. They don't have the spirals, but they are extremely opaque.
- Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club is initially introduced wearing a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses. The club members quickly replace them with contact lenses to show her beautiful eyes.
- Flashbacks show that she did not wear glasses in middle school, but this is explained — she'd lost her contacts and hadn't been able to replace them.
- In The Prince of Tennis, characters like Sadaharu Inui and Hiroshi Yagyuu wear thick glasses that hide their eyes from sight (though Yagyuu's glasses are more Meganekko-type). In fact, a running gag in the anime is to have Inui's teammates and friends attempting to to take his glasses off and see his eyes.
- Karin and Shiho from Naruto. Shiho's are coke-bottle glasses while Karin's have thick black frames. Interestingly, both are huge Fangirls of other characters who have yet to return their interest — Sasuke for Karin and Shikamaru for Shiho.
- Ayaori of Penguin Revolution wears Nerd Glasses most of the time in order to keep from being recognized as Peacock's number one talent.
- A throwaway gag in Bleach has Ichigo offered a pair of these (and a Hachimaki) by a classmate who he outperformed.
- Carly from Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds wears a pair of large spiral glasses, although they're seen through on occasion. Once, when they fall off, she's seen with lines for eyes, but when Misty removes them in a later episode, her eyes are normal, and actually quite attractive.
- Weevil Underwood from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! had some like these, thought they were only opaque whenever the light caught them.
- Makoto Ariga from Wandering Son in his first few appearances. Later on you could see his eyes at all times making him a Megane.
- Episode 9 of Gintama gives us an interesting example; an old man with Nerd Glasses. Under the glasses, he has the eyes of Miyamoto Musashi!
- Ginnosuke from Tokyo Underground is a good example, with thick glasses complete with spirals. When he loses them for a short time, the main character (a longtime friend) doesn't even recognize him, and a few girls find him quite attractive. Chelsea, one of the other main characters, can never remember his name and defaults to "Megane-kun". He's also a rather proficient computer hacker, and ironically fights better with the glasses off.
- Mamoru Kagemori, the title character of Kage Kara Mamoru! (a.k.a. Mamoru the Shadow Protector), wears a fake pair of these to disguise the fact that he is a highly skilled teen ninja.
- Sandy Grayson in Aoi House.
- Subverted with Roberta from Black Lagoon. They're huge but they function like Scary Shiny Glasses. When they're aren't opaque, you see a glare with the fury of 10,000 Hells.
- In The Wallflower, Kyohei wears these when he really needs to study for an exam, which distresses his fangirls as the glasses make him look much less bishonen than usual.
- Maylene from Kuroshitsuji.
- Leo from Pandora Hearts. They're not there for correction, though. They're actually there for the opposite purpose.
- Nanatsuiro Drops has Keisuke, a friend of main character Haru.
- Inverted for Katekyo Hitman Reborn!'s Koyo Aoba, who evidently can't see a damn thing through his glasses, but everyone can see his eyes. This is because they apparently work similarly to Cyclops' ruby quartz visor, except instead of lasers, Koyo's glasses simply hold back the true abilities he inherited.
- Benzo from Kiteresu Daihyakka
- Eddie Sukenari from Kimi Wa Petto. Results in Bishie Sparkle and women falling all over him when he takes them off.
- Saori of Ore No Imouto Ga Konna Ni Kawaii Wake Ga Nai uses them to provoke a stereotypical otaku image. Although she does like things like anime, she is more of an ojou and doesn't have much of stereotypical traits of an otaku.
- In a flashback, it is shown that Faust VIII from Shaman King used to wear these.
Card Games
Comics
- Dilbert is this trope personified.
- Comic artist Scott McCloud draws himself with these in his book, Understanding Comics, and the other books in the series. No spirals, though.
- Also playing with it on one occasion, when he makes the point that the character he's depicting himself as doesn't really look very much like a real human - and demonstrates this by taking off his glasses, revealing there really are no eyes behind them.
- Perhaps on a borderline of Scary Shiny Glasses and Nerd Glasses — Jonas Harrow from the Marvel universe wears spiraly glasses.
- Jason from Foxtrot always has his eyes covered with his trademark glasses. Even when he takes them off, he often squints.
- Rob from Get Fuzzy originally wore these, though they were gradually phased out.
- The core principle of the Clark Kent persona is, of course, the implausibility of Superman wearing Nerd Glasses.
- Plus in comics, unlike real life, the blank white circles actually do mask his appearance. Medium Awareness, anyone?
- Marcie from Peanuts.
- Bruce Banner's most recognizable appearance is that of a short, scrawny, lab-coat-wearing geek with completely opaque nerd glasses.◊
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
- From Russia with Love has Rosa Klebb wearing particularily hideous thick glasses in many scenes.
- In SLC Punk!, the toughest punk in Salt Lake City wears "square" clothing and a pair of nerd glasses. Other punks assume that he's a wimp and pay for it with a bloody nose.
- Rick Vaughn, in Major League, was fitted with these, curing the vision problem that got him branded with the nickname "Wild Thing"
- Although the glasses didn't hurt his persona and still had fangirls (and, oddly, fanboys).
Literature
- Harry Potter: Moaning Myrtle's glasses have been described as this, including being so thick they hide her eyes sometimes.
Live-Action TV
Music
- John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants (the founders of nerdrock) is known for his spectacles. Bandmate John Linnell is also bespectacled, but he takes them off before going onstage.
- Elvis Costello
- Buddy Holly
- Rivers Cuomo of Weezer.
- Jarvis Cocker alternated between these and contact lenses during Pulp's heyday. Nowdays, the specs are an integral part of his image.
- Morrissey of The Smiths, occasionally.
Puppet Shows
- Scooter from The Muppet Show has thick glasses with his eyes on the lenses. His eyes are on his glasses, not his face. His Distaff Counterpart Skeeter has an identical pair on Muppet Babies.
- At the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew has no eyes at all behind his glasses, which gives the effect of Opaque Lenses, even though the frames are empty.
- Brains from Thunderbirds. Not as extreme as some other examples here, but it gets the point across all the same.
Video Games
- Some characters from the Super Mario Bros.. games have Nerd Glasses, such as Iggy Koopa, Professor E. Gadd from Luigi's Mansion, and Professor Frankly from Paper Mario. These characters usually look (and sometimes sound) more Japanese than the others.
- A few background characters in the Super Mario Adventures comic have these.
- Fawful from the Mario & Luigi games sports red glasses, complete with spirals and crazy grin.
- In Super Robot Wars Original Generation, Latooni wears these to begin with. But their size is actually functional, as they're used to help her collect an analyze data. When she finds herself undergoing a dramatic shift in appearance, she loses them altogether. In the remake for the Playstation 2, she is instead given a pair of Meganekko glasses.
- This was parodied (foreshadowed?) in a Yonkoma where several characters tried to get Ryusei to talk her into putting the glasses back on.
- Gordon Freeman from Half-Life has a pair of these. However, instead of losing them once he starts ripping zombies apart with a crowbar, he keeps them and becomes a Badass Bookworm.
- A fortune teller named Kalifa in Skies of Arcadia has a pair of the large, spiral variant. She joins your crew once you get your own ship.
- Lucca from Chrono Trigger has these, but actually manages to be attractive despite it.
- Really, she's got the transparent Meganekko glasses — you can see this in all the official art and animations, as well as her character information screen. They're just opaque in-game because of sprite limitations — it's hard to denote "glasses" without them being opaque when the lenses need to be only two or three pixels wide.
- The Igor Chobin in Pokémon XD Gale Of Darkness has googly glasses, which are apparently essential to his functioning.
- Loid from EarthBound Zero.
- Same with both Jeff and Dr. Andonuts from EarthBound.
- Ernie Eaglebeak from The Spellcasting Series.
Web Comics
- Subverted in El Goonish Shive, in which one of the lead characters pretends to be Blind Without 'Em; in actuality, his glasses are high-tech espionage gear (including an X-Ray Vision feature which he removed to avoid temptation), and help hide the fact that he's so painfully girly that just looking into his eyes tends to cause Stupid Sexy Flanders moments in heterosexual males.
- In Narbonic, Dave's glasses don't have the spirals, but function like Nerd Glasses in every other way — until he goes mad, and they suddenly become totally clear.
- In Triquetra Cats, Rain Soricha wore a pair of these in her adopted civilian life. When she becomes a super-powered magic user, she removes them, revealing her big sparkly doe eyes.
- Ping from Megatokyo starts wearing these in an effort to look Hollywood Homely and fit in with the jealous girls of her class. To her horror it pretty much ends up as meganekko, no matter how nerdy the glasses.
- Dave of Real Life Comics wears these. One strip even lampshades this trope when another character that wears normal glasses ask Dave why his glasses are opaque. It turns out that Dave's glasses are multifunctional displays with internet access.
- Gwynn of Sluggy Freelance is a classic example of this trope, not only being Blind Without 'Em but also Beautiful All Along.
- Piffany from Nodwick. The glasses seem only to get bigger as Art Evolution goes.
- Meegs the wizard aprentice in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic.
- Emojueel of Juathuur sports them.
- Ichabod of Far Out There boasts an especially gigantic pair.
- Jade and John in Homestuck both sport some. John's are rectangular spectacles, though they can be hard to see because the bridge isn't often drawn; Jade's are big and round. Several other characters also wear glasses, but the nerdiness of them are debatable: Sollux fits the nerdy archetype well, being an extremely good computer programmer, but his red-and-blue Cool Shades are used more to cover up his bizarre color-changing eyes than denote nerdiness; Vriska's big lenses match those requirements, but her personality really doesn't fit.
Western Animation
Real Life
- New US military recruits who report to their respective boot camps are not allowed to wear any prescription eyewear they bring with them. Within the first week, they are prescribed a pair of durable yet unflattering thick brown specs called BC (birth control) glasses (or, alternately, BCDs, for BC Devices or BCG for Birth Control Goggles). So named because wearing them in public
guarantees you'll never get laid is the surest form of birth control known to man.
- Comedian Drew Carey, who did a hitch in the Marines, has made this type of glasses part of his public persona.
- Lampshaded in the (full) second opening of The Drew Carey Show, where Drew's glasses are broken and by his friend's advice he replaces them by going to the nearby Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and stealing Buddy Holly's.
- Adam Savage of MythBusters wears this style of glasses while filming, though he tends to wear more subdued glasses when off the set.
- Bifocals and glasses that correct for astigmatism.
- Nerdfighters!
- Actor Harold Lloyd first helped popularize horn-rimmed glasses in America in the 1920s.
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