Scary Shiny Glasses - Television Tropes & Idioms

(Top picture) Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion, who combines this with a Kubrick Stare and clasped hands to devastating effect. (In a pretty obvious thematic nod, his original pair of glasses broke when he rescued Rei, and he took to wearing his sunglasses at all times afterward. In the manga version, the readers - and implicitly Shinji - began to see Gendo's eyes behind his glasses more often as we learned more about him.) For whatever reasons, photoshops of Gendo's sunglasses and steepled fingers onto random people and characters became something of a meme.
- The truly frightening part is that Gendo looks even scarier without glasses then he does with them on
- In Rebuild 2.0, Ritsuko and Mari spend some time doing this to.
Yuki Nagato of Suzumiya Haruhi, does this at times.
Hellsing does this a lot with Alucard, Integra, Anderson, Rip, occasionally Walter, and a few others. It fact, Hellsing thrives on this trope for horror effects. Owning a pair of glasses or shades seems to mark most of the important characters. Admittedly, though, some lesser characters have these.
- Alucard ditches his glasses for the most part after the first half of the series (people complained that they made him look like a knock-off of similar characters.) Strangely, he can still do this -without the glasses. Admittedly, he may just have glowing pupils.
- Alucard subverts this in that his eyes are only revealed when he's letting loose. First one, then both, then he becomes a goddamn cloud of eyes.
Anthy Himemiya from Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Yoriko from Youre Under Arrest does the shiny-glasses routine whenever she tells scary stories or is up to something especially devious.
Professor Tomoe◊ from Sailor Moon. In fact, we most often seen him as a silhouette with scary shiny glasses.
- And Ami on occasion.
Ayane Isuzu From Gatekeepers 21.
Muraki from Yami No Matsuei.
Yomiko Readman from Read Or Die (yes, really). Sometimes Nenene in ROD the TV too. In Anita's flashback, Yomiko's glasses actually glow like headlights.
Itsuki Midoriba from Shuffle, normally only when he's being mischievous.
Tasuke Yasuda from Tenshi Na Konamaiki.
In times of stress or extreme exasperation, the Scary Shiny Glasses are seen on Yomi in Azumanga Daioh.
- And Mr. Kimura's glasses are always shiny. Appropriately enough, he's usually kinda creepy.
Captain Kuro on One Piece. Lampshaded when Kaya gives him a new pair for his third anniversary as her butler, and he other attendant says they've been fitted so they won't keep slipping off and reflecting light because of the angle.
- In the most recent episode of the anime, Kuma pulls this off too, though in his case it's more like Scary Shiny Focusing Lenses than actual glasses.
- Admiral Kizaru. He has the power of the Pika-Pika Fruit, making him a "Light Man". That also means he can kick at the speed of light, as well as generally become light and make light-based explosions. Having said that, when he uses his power, his glasses literally become shiny as a the pirate shits his pants for a brief split second before he kicks you. If it even takes that long. Pirates, beware!
Gainer does this near the series finale.
- Super Robot Wars K uses this to frightening effect, where the screen goes black, and his glasses (the only thing visible) begin to appear and disappear, and each time they get a little bit closer...
Subversion: Dr. Ono Tofu from Ranma 1/2 goes into shiny-glasses mode whenever he encounters Kasumi Tendo, on whom he has (apparently) a deep, all-encompassing crush. He's far from evil, but he spaces so badly during these "attacks" that he can hurt people quite severely, completely by accident.
- This Troper always thought that was his glasses steaming up?
- Genma Saotome, of all people, actually pulls this off a couple of times in the anime. And he plays it straight.
Brad Crawford from Weiss Kreuz.
Shou Tucker, the "Sewing Life Alchemist", from Full Metal Alchemist. On the other hand, Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes' occasionally-Scary glasses function entirely backwards, showing his eyes only when a Plan is being Formed.
- This might actually be more in line with the "concealing one's soul" angle, though - most glasses on the characters are Shiny only during bouts of Obfuscating Absentmindedness, and the effect only subsides when they reveal their true, hypercompetent nature.
- When he is not busy being a ditzy Cloudcuckoolander, manga Hohenheim switches to Scary Shiny Glasses mode and becomes a competent, badass, and threatening Determinator. Also used to great comic effects to emphasize the weirdness of his body language, as he makes scary revelations and silly comments with an impenetrable face and hidden eyes.
- Scar did this occasionally back when he wore sunglasses more.
Kabuto Yakushi, Naruto. What's noteable here is how frequently he pushes them up as if they were Nerd Glasses (sometimes over 4 times in less than a minute) but still maintains his twisted, sadistic, mysterious demeanor.
- Not to mention Shino, whose eyes (or, according to some theories, lack thereof) are a fairly well-discussed topic among the fandom.
- The bookstore owner in Episode 2 also demonstrates these while ejecting Naruto.
Kyouya Ootori in Ouran High School Host Club.
Three examples from Patlabor: Officer Shinshi, Mister Utsumi, and Utsumi's henchman Kurosaki.
Roberta in Black Lagoon.
- Dutch also gets these at one point during the scene in episode three where Revy wipes out a pirate fleet singlehandedly.
Principal Chieko Sannomiya in I! My! Me! Strawberry Eggs.
Shuichi Takamizawa of Midori No Hibi uses his glasses to hide his figurine Otaku obsession. The lenses will crack to show that his emotions are becoming too much to contain, then appear undamaged when he has control again. When he's being sincere but still scary, one lens will clear while the other is opaque.
Push Vash the Stampede from Trigun hard enough, and he'll put on his Scary Shiny Glasses. If you were the poor bastard who pushed him into this mode, you are absolutely screwed, as this is when he drops his Obfuscating Stupidity and becomes a true force to be reckoned with. The only thing worse than Scary Shiny Glasses mode for Vash is when he's pushed far enough for him to enter "Eyes of the Diablo" mode, in which case you are completely, utterly screwed beyond all hope. Although he still won't kill you.
An early example is Musuka from the film Laputa: Castle in the Sky, whose dark glasses display glints of light passing across them, particularly to emphasize when he says or does something particularly devious.
In Love Hina, Keitaro's glasses (and to a lesser degree, Naru's) go Shiny at times when they are deep in thought or experiencing intense emotion — a milder version than the scary, sinister usage.
In Detective Conan (Case Closed in the U.S.), Conan's glasses often go shiny when he's thinking hard, plotting, or experiencing a flash of inspiration.
Bleach:
- Aizen Sousuke, originally portrayed as a well-mannered and nice guy, occasionally had scary shiny glasses, particularly when Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya learns of his treachery. Later, though, his particularly devious plans are revealed, and he breaks his glasses.
- Uryu Ishida's glasses shine when he ponders something, wants to hide his feelings or gets angry. His father, Ryuuken, is pretty much always pondering, keeping secrets, and being bitter, so his glasses are often shiny.
- 8th Division lieutenant Nanao Ise in episode 55 when she's angry with her captain for leaving her behind while escaping from Captain Yamamoto.
  - She's actually scarier when she releases her glasses, but this only occurs in the Omake Shinigami Golden Cup. Even someone as sadistic like Mayuri pissed on his pants when he sees her releasing her glasses.
- Ichigo's zanpakuto Zangetsu in human form.
- Don Kanonji’s glasses often become shiny when he’s excited about one of his new ideas (which could be considered frightening).
- Chizuru Honshou when thinking about Orihime in episode 15.
- The Bount Ugaki while using his doll against the invading Soul Reapers in episodes 89 and 90.
Kitagawa in Genshiken does this on occasion.
- Anybody with glasses in Genshiken, although this is less Scary Shiny Glasses and more either "Hide your Feelings" glasses or "Hide your identity" glasses.
Murata Ken in Kyou Kara Maou has scary shiny glasses when he's being devious or withholding information from the other good guys.
Kurata from Digimon Savers, in which the shiny glasses are used as a label reading "This guy is evil. Really damn evil. So evil we should call him Hitlermon, seriously."
In Pokemon, Max occasionally does this when he's pulling Brock away from a beautiful woman. He's not evil, just really annoyed. And annoying, but that's another story.
- Later, Conway. Subverted by the fact that Conway is otherwise a pretty normal guy (ignoring the fact that he likes to 'investigate' people - usually girls - and can breathe underwater) and an extremely knowledgeable Pokemon battler.
  - Well, Conway had some sort of weird device in his mouth to breathe underwater, (yes, I'll notice that, and not the fact he's spying on Dawn in a bikini... isn't it a kid's show?!) Misty has been seen talking underwater!
- Lorelei, though only in the Pokemon Special Manga. In fact, all of her appearances, major or minor, keepes her eyes hidden behind the glare from the glasses, even when standing by the battle between Lance and Yellow. Ironically, the battle is happening in a cave.
Lain's father from Serial Experiments Lain does this quite a lot, particularly to depict how alienated Lain gets from the real world. Different from most cases as the effect is more the glow of a computer monitor than the shine of a reflective surface.
Kuzuki in Fate Stay Night's anime adaptation.
In Mai-HiME, Ishigami when he's being evil and Yukino when she's hiding something.
In Gundam Wing, Lady/Colonel Une's multiple personality disorder hinges on whether she has her glasses on or not. I forget if they ever actually "Shine" but I think this counts.
- This troper says they do shine several times, so yeah.
Digimon Adventure 02 has Ken. While he's the Big Bad, his villainous outfit is topped off with shades that often do the Scary Shiny thing while he's plotting something.
- His Start Of Darkness almost-Whole Episode Flashback includes a very creepy scene where a young Ken looks up to see his older brother, Osamu, doing the scary glasses thing down at him, right before flying into a rage and yelling at Ken for disobeying him. This is when Ken wished his brother would "just disappear;" the Big Bad Digimon Kaiser bears a disturbing resemblance to Osamu.
Ovan in .hack//Roots
Zack Temple in the anime of Mega Man Star Force, but only for a second. Mainly just to show he's a jerk despite being geeky.
Kurama from Elfen Lied to showcase that he is a cold, emotionally tormented individual.
In the manga Battle Angel Alita/Gunmn, Desty Nova wears spectacles which are essentially opaque, hiding his eyes. Only in moments when his insanity clears does he actually remove them.
Parodied with Haruko from Hayate The Combat Butler. Light is reflected off her glasses in a manner that resembles a laser. She can use these lasers to burn up pieces of paper.
- Also played straight in a Shout Out to Gendo Ikari in the first episode, where Hayate's poses in [i]exactly[/i] the same way.
Autor from Princess Tutu is first introduced with a cameo in episode 15, where he appears with whited-out glasses. He has a cameo in every single episode after this up until his true introduction with each time his glasses appearing to glow more and more as he seems to become more and more irate. When he's introduced properly in episode 21 (and we start to get to know him), his glasses barely flash at all—and later, during times of weakness and vulnerability, his glasses actually are knocked off his face.
Quattro is introduced with these in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and naturally she's the most psychotic of the Numbers.
- Yuuno manages to pull it off pretty well in season 3 as well, albeit with definite Nerd Glasses traits.
Ghost In The Shell has a version of this were not only is the Yakuza boss talking calmly without looking at whom he is talking to, his glasses are shining with the reflection of the porn movie he is watching. (Yes, he is watching a porn movie while talking to the police.)
Mr. Prospector's glasses on Martian Successor Nadesico go all scary-shiny when he's being a Corrupt Corporate Executive, and lack this feature as he gets more sympathetic. Meganekko Hikaru's glasses are always transparent, because she's both too adorable and too straightforward for this trope to apply.
Soichiro Yagami does this in Death Note when somebody suggests that Sayu and Matsuda might be getting married.
- It's also a trademark of the highly unpleasant Demegawa.
In The Prince Of Tennis, Inui's already thick Nerd Glasses shine when he's pondering something important or gathers information. In the manga, the shine is constant; we don't see his eyes, ever, until a good long way in. Other guys with glasses (Tezuka, Kite, Oshitari) also get shiny glasses sometimes.
Amon Garam Yu-Gi-Oh GX, at least after he embraces The Dark Side.
Serial killer-slash-Yaoi Guy Adrian in the one volume manga Boys Next Door features these in his Creepy Child flashback scenes.
Dr. Franken Stein of Soul Eater does this; as someone with a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate; he's pretty much required.
- Yumi Asuza also does this on occasion, when disagreeing with Stein, and intimidating her colleagues and boss. Also, a few times, Ox Ford's glasses are Scary Shiny.
- Stein is an interesting case; when he's being incompetent and goofy, his glasses are opaque, but if he shifts suddenly to being serious, one or both eyes become visible. Of course, he plays it straight about as much as he inverts it.
In the manga Yotsuba&!, Jumbo's glasses sometimes go shiny, but it's more or less inversely to how scary he's being. The one exception is when he forgets himself and accidentally slaps Yotsuba on the back, sending her tumbling across the room.
Takami from Eyeshield 21 develops this while using psychlogical warfare in the match between Ojou and Deimon. It doesn't match his personality well, honestly; He's one of the series' most obvious Determinators, and he really cares about all the other players. Bizarrely, this has never happend to him before, even though he always wears glasses. Even when he's playing football.
Also occaisionally seen on Yoshou and Noboyuki in Tenchi Muyo. While it does make them seem briefly intimidating, as they're otherwise very unassuming (especially Bumbling Dad Noboyuki), it counterproductively makes the resemblace between them even more uncanny, which is strange because Yoshou is Noboyuki's father-in law.
- But still related to him; Word Of God says that Yosho has taken more than one wife during his time on Earth, and Noboyuki is his descendant through one of his earlier spouses.
Dr. Kabapu from Excel Saga does this in the first episode he's introduced. Also occasionally occurs with Koshi Rikdo and Lord Ilpalazzo (although his glasses are smaller than usually used with this trope).
Mr. Stewart from Sonic X
- Dr. Eggman aswell. It's alot more effective considering his already inhuman proportions.
As mentioned in the page quote, Yamazaki from Welcome To The NHK can indeed do this without a light source. Usually he doesn't have these at all, though.
In the Manga series Et Cetera, the villion Mr Alternate does this alot in his first two pages, though mostly an inverted version. The first time, all you can see is a smirk, his monocule, and a spyglass he's useing. Second, both eyes are visible, but nothing else but the outline of his monocule. Lastly, the non monoculed face is covered by a sheet of paper, his face visible. Throughout this, when his pupils are visiible, they are just round circles, not colored in.
Marcoh the X-Law from Shaman King uses this a lot.
As per the description, Aion of Chrono Crusade fame seems to wear these glasses simply to achieve this effect; his eyesight seems to be perfectly fine. Later in the manga when his plans, motivation and backstory are revealed (and he becomes much more sympathetic), he loses the glasses. (The anime adaptation kept him as a Card Carrying Villain, so he keeps the glasses throughout.)
Haruna from Mahou Sensei Negima tends to get a humorous version of these on occasion. Usually when she goes on a To The Pain style rant when her friends try to leave her out of something.
Kitamura from Toradora does this on occasion, notably when helping the student council president plan the school culture festival. The effect is often more comical than intimidating.
In Gundam00, Regene's glasses shine ominously for several moments as he awaits the arrival of Wang Liu Mei and Hong Long, to whom he then leaks Veda's coordinates.
Dr Jian-yi Nii in Saiyuki is damn good at this. Even when he's backlit, he manages. Now that's talent.
- Also often used by Tenpou Gensui in Saiyuki Gaiden. Somewhat amusing, since he is actually the past life of good guy Cho Hakkai.
Subverted in The Law Of Ueki by Kobayashi, who is often arguably scarier (and more badass) when you can see through his glasses. When the Scary Shiny Glasses effect disappears, you know something big is either about to go down, or just did. The subversion is made even stronger by the fact that he's actually quite friendly and easy to get along with (unless your name is Inumaru, of course).
The Big O episode 18 "The Greatest Villain". Beck's glasses have this trait while he's showing off his hostage Roger Smith.
Rei from Pani Poni Dash sports these when sufficiently peeved off.
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. Shinji Kazama's otaku glasses turn this way when he starts describing the effects of the biological weapon that's been accidentally released in the classroom.
Tomu Shirasagi often has these.
In DN Angel, both Satoshi and his (adoptive) father occasional have shiny glasses.
Anehara Misa from Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou sometimes has this when serious, otherwise she's meganekko.
Black Cat has a Mad Scientist who has glasses that are occasionally shiny, particularly when he does the other common anime glasses trope: the three fingered pushing glasses up his nose gesture.
Furoko Tsukumo, mother of Teen Genius Susumu, wears these to show her status as Designated Antagonist on Wandaba Style, or perhaps to hide the fact that her eyes are filled with Shoujo eye sparkles.
Hazuki Fujiwara in Ojamajo Doremi has done this.
In Mahoromatic, both Suguru Misato and his school teacher Shikijo-sensei.
In Pretear, Sasame tends to have his glasses whited-out when he's having a face fault moment...which isn't this trope. However, when he stands on top of the roof, wind blowing dramatically through his clothing and glasses shining as he questions himself about his willingness to attack the woman he loves, then has a Face Heel Turn in the next scene he appears in, it's definitely this trope.
Lancelot demonstrates this at least once, definitely showing how scary they can be, lurking in the shadows◊.
Happens to Irie occasionally.

Close Anime

For some odd reason, David in the comic book adaption of Shaun Of The Dead has this trope, making him look strangely like Gendo Ikari...
As an adolescent, Sara/h from The Maxx is often shown in silhouette with only the blank lenses of her glasses visible.
The Ax Crazy protagonist of Welcome To Hoxford has this, and he never takes his glasses off.
Triple X Ray in Sleeper has this even in the dark. When he finally takes them off it's revealed that his eyes are glowing radioactively.
The Corinthian in Neil Gaiman's Sandman always wears reflective sunglasses, but then, that's really preferable to looking at what he actually has in his eye sockets.
In "The Hard Goodbye," the first graphic novel of ''Sin City," the cannibalistic serial killer Kevin wears glasses with lenses that often whited out so his eyes are not visible.

Close Comic Books

In the film adaptation of Sin City, Kevin's glasses follow this trope, as suggested by the graphic novel's art style.
Possibly inspired by "The Man With No Eyes" from the prison drama Cool Hand Luke.
In the Coen Brothers' film O Brother Where Art Thou? there is an evil sheriff who wears shiny, reflective aviator glasses. These reflect fire at every possible opportunity, one of the many suggestions that he is Satan in disguise.
The Terminator always wore sunglasses, even when he did a Heel Face Turn in the second one. The villain of that film often wore biker goggles, which - since he needed to be even creepier - reflected fire at every possible opportunity.
In The Silence Of The Lambs, Buffalo Bill wears night vision goggles in a few scenes.
Morpheus from The Matrix often sports a pair. A firm good guy, though.
- Just Morpheus? Everyone in The Matrix, all the time.
  - Hey, it's hard to model eyes in CGI!
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Judge Doom's glasses do this twice during the final confrontation in the Acme warehouse: while he's explaining his plan to Eddie Valiant and while he and Eddie are fighting.
Riddick's goggles in Pitch Black and The Chronicles Of Riddick are so tight on his skull they almost look like cybernetic implants. They're not.
The airplane pilot at the beginning of Westworld dons a pair.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has Himmler wear these in the brief scene in which he appears. Extra evil points for the glare being the reflection of a pyre upon which books are being burned.
In the independent film "Ink" the bad guys glasses upgrade to super shiny in the climax fight.

Close Film

In the Dystopia classic 1984, a colleague of protagonist Winston Smith has a hostile spectacle-flash, which is the textual equivalent.
- Likewise, in Politics and the English Language, also by George Orwell: When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases...one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them.
In the C.S. Lewis novel That Hideous Strength, the character of Professor Frost is repeatedly described as having pince nez glasses that would reflect light in such a way as to make his eyes invisible.
In John Bellair's novel The House with a Clock in its Walls, the undead Mrs. Izzard has exactly this sort of glasses which even shine with ghostly radiance during a chase scene, and after her destruction, all that is left of her is her skull and her glasses.
In Deathly Hallows, Aberforth's glasses do this at one point when his brother is mentioned.
Nguyen Seth of the Dark Future novels, a truly terrifying character, has these glasses. At a couple of points he takes the glasses off, and, although his eyes are never described, the characters who see them are never quite the same again.
One of the anarchists in The Man Who Was Thursday wears a pair of them. Deliberately. With them, he's terrifying to behold. Without them, he's cheerful and ordinary.
In William Golding's Lord Of The Flies, Piggy's glasses do this several times.
Don't forget William Gibson's Neuromancer! Molly has permanent implanted mirror lenses in her sockets that make her eyes completely invisible.
The Major dons these in Stephen King's The Long Walk.

Close Literature

Not quite so literal Western example: Mr. Bennet in Heroes wears horn-rimmed glasses, which ramp up his personal creepiness factor.
- Dramatically. His Fan Nickname during the first season, when he had appeared but his identity was not yet known, was simply "Horned Rim Glasses" or "The HRG."
  - They aren't hornrims, they're browlines—but that hasn't stopped them from referring to him as "HRG" in the show
Self appointed moral guardian Mary Whitehouse is portrayed as having them by the trailers for her upcoming TV biopic, Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. Since the film is made and shown by the BBC, which was one of her most frequent targets, this may be an intentional use of this trope.
In one episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron walks around in a pair of motorcycle cop shiny sunglasses, in an homage to the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
Admiral Adama's glasses in Battlestar Galactica often catch the light and glint ominously when some serious ass-kicking is about to ensue.
Rare early Western example: the War Lords in the Doctor Who story "The War Games" (capable of using it to hypnotise human characters).

Close Live Action TV

The Strange Folk in the music video for Gorillaz' "Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head" are depicted as pitch black silhouettes wearing glowing red goggles.
At one point in his music video for Back and Forth, Doctor Steel's goggles reflect nonexistent flames as he sings about "drag[ging] a burning smile across this nation".

Close Music

Bil Keane from The Family Circus, especially when interpreted by The Dysfunctional Family Circus, as seen here and here.

Close Newspaper Comics

There's one of the most scariest scenes in Condemned:Criminal Origins, where you've been suddently attacked by your recent companion, with a Scary Shiny Glasses effect permanently on. Turns out that this was just a hallucination, though.
Latooni Subota from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation is a perfect example. She wears extremely thick coke-bottle glasses that she says are her analyzation glasses; they turn out to be a psychological tool she uses to stay professional at all times.
Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic The Hedgehog games always hid his eyes behind a pair of round-frame sunglasses, and at one point wore goggles over them. His true eye color (blue) was not revealed until 2006's Sonic The Hedgehog, and even then it was only briefly.
In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Kristoph Gavin develops this when things cease going his way. At one point, you can look through those glasses and see his eyes. It's very, very unnerving.
- Also in the same game, it is subverted with Winfred Kitaki who LOOKS like he has them (or perhaps very large shadows in place of his eyes), but in reality, they are his eyebrows, and look like glasses because his eyes are always shut.
Sparda of Devil May Cry has a one-way purple monocle over his left eye while in his human form.
The Sorrow in Metal Gear Solid 3 has glasses that simultaneously blank out and break when he does his ghost routine.
Keats from Folklore does this often, like every second scene. He also has scary shiny glasses whenever he's in combat and his Transcendence bar is filling up.
It is implied that Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss literally wears his glasses to protect the environment from his eyes. Needless to say, they flash often, especially in the anime adaptation.
- In both the game and anime, the only time you ever see both of Dist's eyes is when he's not wearing his glasses.
- Mind you, Dist is about as 'scary' as a roll of toilet paper.
Played for laughs in Persona 3: FES: In one of the new extra features for the original storyline, Shuji Ikutsuki's glasses do this whenever he thinks up one of his terrifyingly bad puns. This happens a lot. Also, when he goes into full-on Nietzsche Wannabe slash A God Am I territory, his glasses do this too. It abruptly ceases being funny.
- Players familiar with this trope can spot the twist a mile away, as all but one of his evil mode pictures show up before he reveals his plan.
- Everyone on your team in Persona 4, except for Teddie, whose eyes are actually lenses. Justified because they are special glasses that clear up the eternally present fog in the TV world.
When Mao's glasses start to shine, it's generally a good rule of thumb to get the bloody hell out of there. Usually, it means ~~he's planning to drill a hole in your head to see what's inside~~ the mad science is about to begin, and you're the specimen.
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's infamously creepy Survival Horror freeware game, 1213, features the impatient and batshit-insane Westbury, who torments 1213 through video screens. All that we see of him besides his silhouette are his his huge round glasses. What's more, the shiny glasses are the boss of the second episode, as a pair of giant white circles that fire bolts of lighting at the protagonist.
Beruga, one of the main antagonists in Terranigma. His hometown Mosque is adorned with giant posters of his face, and his eyes hidden behind a pair of opaque round glasses.
Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII gets a lot of mileage out of this one. Due to the limitations of low-poly models, in-game his glasses are opaque pretty much the whole time. In better-animated Compilation materials, he glints significantly at the drop of a hat.
Roxis Rozenkrantz of Mana Khemia. Whenever he's in battle, his idle battle sprite will periodically have an omnimous glare
Albert Wesker from Resident Evil does this a hell of a lot. Come 5, it's gotten even worse, as the Virus has apparently done a lot of good for Wesker in this case. He wears mirrored glasses to keep people from seeing his obviously-infected eyes, and the second Jill and Chris open fire, begins teleporting around the room and dodging bullets like he just stepped right out of the Matrix. All without losing the scary as hell shine.
Kamek and his fellow Magikoopas from the Super Mario Bros games all wear identical round, opaque glasses.
Iron Tager from Blaz Blue: Bringing the Real Soviet Damage with permanent glasses-glow.
Aoi-sensei in Aoi Shiro occasionally engages the shine effect, usually when teasing the girls with scary stories.

Close Videogames

Subversion: Tedd from El Goonish Shive, whose glasses look like this trope, but function more as Nerd Glasses. They once functioned as true Scary Shiny Glasses while he was ranting in full Mad Scientist mode about a new invention.
- His father, on the other hand, has nearly identical glasses and works as a MIB. Not to mention that even compared to the other MIBs he works with, he's shown to have an unnervingly clear picture of all the weirdness going on in Moperville and the surrounding areas.
Another subversion: Dave in Narbonic has these glasses, but his eyes are visible when he goes mad.
In A Miracle Of Science, Dr. Haas' glasses turn like this the very instant he's infected with Science Related Memetic Disorder.
Quite a common trope in Funny Farm to illustrate the sinister (although not necessarily evil) nature of some characters, e.g. here and here.
Nip & Tuck do this with a minor character here, as part of a ridiculously elaborate practical joke to scare a blowhard.
In Everyday Heroes, this is how Professor Odious is first seen, hinting that Jane Mighty may have a Dark And Troubled Past. Lampshaded here where he explains how he obtains the effect.
Fedya in Rhapsodies. Normally he's a good natured, gregarious and laid back individual who enjoys playing the funny foreigner, but when his glasses turn walk away slowly.

Close Webcomics

Secondary villain Mars from Broken Saints sports a pair of glowing red shades, which are appropriately knocked askew when he gets his ass kicked by the heroes.
Dr. Horrible, after undergoing his final transformation.
While it doesn't appear in game, artwork commonly portrays Hawley Faust from Survival Of The Fittest v1 with these.

Close Web Original

The girl Sarah in MTV's Oddities: The Maxx, a depressed sarcastic lonely girl, who's father turns out not to be dead but the serial killer Mr. Gone. Her thick glasses are not only shiny to the point of opaqueness, they cover almost half her face. The first time you can actually see her eyes (briefly), is when she snaps and threatens to shoot... well, shoot someone, possibly herself, with one of her father's guns. (She doesn't in the end, because she's Genre Savvy and doesn't want to end up as a soppy girl.)
In an episode of The Batman, Scary Shiny Glasses were the only sign that Clark Kent wasn't Clark Kent, but Clayface posing as him. That and his terrible acting.
The Master in the animated Funny Animal series Road Rovers wears these at all times, though he's the leader of the protagonists. Handwaved at one point, when he explains there's no real reason for his glasses to be glowing like that, it just makes for a cool effect.
- Considering that the Master doesn't actually wear glasses, it must be a rare case of Scary Shiny Contact Lenses.
Dale Gribble from King Of The Hill is rarely ever seen without his mirrored shades. While he's still a lovably inept doofus, he happens to be the single most devious and untrustworthy character on the show.
Cloud biologist Dr. Claude Belgon in the beautiful gothic-steampunk animated short film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (Australia, 2005) is a textbook example of the creepy scientist with shiny glasses. In fact because all the characters have been rendered as layer-on-layer black silhouettes (in the way of Balinesian shadow puppets) with silvery highlights, all you get to see of his eyes are the white circles of his glasses against the black background of his head.
Dib from Invader Zim is shown with these (and in silhouette to boot!) in the title sequence- however that's the only time his glasses are shiny.
- Another example are the Swollen Eyeballs, a group of AgentMulders who are only ever seen (but once) on a video screen in silhouette with red eyes/glasses/visors.
- And Dib in the frycook what came from all that space (i think) when Gaz returns and finds him mid-rant
Willy Watt develops these in his debut episode of Batman Beyond. The closing, silhouetted scene of him in juvenile hall just makes them scarier, to such a degree that it seems to be affecting the other inmates. (Well, okay, maybe it was really because he made a TV explode, but the glasses played a role in it.)

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Lavrentiy Beria (the chief of Stalin's secret police) and Heinrich Himmler (the SS Reichsfuehrer) wore round glasses. These glasses were probably not so shiny... but both guys, no doubt, were scary and creepy!
- Also see the (still bad, but more Knight Templar) Maximilien Robespierre pimp-glasses. Which might have been shiny, and are occasionally portrayed in fanworks as such.
- Oh, Beria's glasses were shiny◊.
Dark, shiny glasses were invented by the Chinese to obscure the eyes of judges, making this Older Than Print.

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