When She Smiles / Anime & Manga

Examples of When She Smiles in anime and manga.

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• Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says: At the end of chapter 3, Toda finally smiles, rendering Tanaka speechless. She immediately takes a photo for posterity, and Toda chases after her to make her delete it.
• In Asteroid in Love, Mira often spots them.
  • In Chapter 2 / Episode 1, Mira notes Ao is not really a "cool beauty" and she's super cute when she noticed the latter's smile the morning after their Stargazing Scene-over-the-phone.
  • There are several times when the usually prickly Mikage shows her caring side, especially when she takes note of her kouhai's achievements. Mira often takes note of this, at which point Mikage turns back goes back to her usual mode.
• Attack on Titan has Levi always look stoic and angry, pretty much all the time. However in the OVA when he does crack a smile, it's pretty amazing and heartwarming. And then when he smiles in the main chapter, it leaves everyone present absolutely stunned.
• In Battle Royale, Hirono, the second in command bad girl in Mitsuko's gang is depicted as this. Despite having a punk hairstyle and being very nasty normally, when she meets up with protagonist Shuya (whom it's implied and revealed that she actually has a crush on), she ends up showing a smile from her heart. This leads to Shuya realizing that she's not all bad, and throughout the series, one of his greater regrets is being unable to save her. It pretty much directly follows this trope when he describes her at one point.
• Sen Yarizui from Ben-To is usually The Stoic, but her features soften considerably when she offers up a sincere, heartfelt smile.
• Discussed by Guts and played for drama in Berserk.
  • After all of the crap that they had gone through since the eclipse, all that Guts wants to do is to make his insane lover Casca smile (though she is attractive regardless of if she smiles or not). But after he nearly strangles and later almost rapes her on account of being influenced by his Enemy Within she is now fearful of him and won't even let Guts touch her with tenderness anymore. It's more heartbreaking because seeing her smile is the only thing that makes Guts himself smile nowadays, and it kills him to see how Casca fears and detests him now.
  • To add to the above, in Volume 28, Guts briefly gives a true smile (bonus that his eyes are shining and not dull like they usually are) upon hearing from the Skull Knight that Casca might be cured of her insanity once and for all if he gets her to Elfhelm. Schierke, who is present, gives a soft reaction of happiness that she was able to see Guts smile like this.
  • Guts does it again◊ when he gets actual confirmation that Casca can be cured.
• Black Butler goes out of its way to prove this of Ciel. To the point where Joker in the manga gives him the stage name of Smile in an ironic sense... but then finds out that Ciel is a damn knockout. It seems as though Elizabeth's entire point of existing is to make him smile again... and she is one of the few people who can get a genuine smile.
• Machida Yuki of Cheeky Brat is normally drawn with a flat scowl that befits her stoic nature. She doesn't change her expression much, even for her boyfriend Sho. When she smiles at him for the first time after a qualifying match, he is stunned. It affects him so much that he sticks closer to her afterwards, unwilling to let other people see her smile in front of them.
• Code Geass: Usually smirking or giving an evil grin when not using the placid smile of his civilian identity, but when Lelouch Lamperouge lets out his genuine smile (usually around Nunnally but over time his interactions with C.C. draw it out of him) it's utterly adorable. Rolo in particular notes that smile is precious and rare, describing it as his "true smile" that Lelouch only shows to his most precious ones.
• Darker than Black:
  • Hei generally racks up a Chick Magnet count even without a real smile (he has plenty of fake ones, but they're just that — fake), but if Amber's testimony is anything to go by, a genuine one can make sociopaths fall for him.
    Amber: There was one time that he actually laughed from the bottom of his heart. His smile captivated me. That's when I thought to myself, "You really did it this time." I felt as if I would do anything for him.
  • Yin has a weird combination of this and The Unsmile. Due to her Frozen Face, it's not the end result that's cute so much as the effort she puts into it.
• When ERASED's adult protagonist Satoru Mental Time Travels back to when he was in fifth grade, he becomes involved with Kayo Hinazuki in order to prevent her murder. In doing so he learns she's a Broken Bird with Abusive Parents. When he sees Kayo smile or show genuine happiness the effect on Satoru is strong enough that he has to consciously remind himself that he isn't a child.
• In The Familiar of Zero Season 4 Episode 5 Saito says he feels happy when he sees Louise smile.
• Subverted and Played Straight in the series Fire Force. The main character, Shinra, suffers from nervous laughter. This makes him break out into a Slasher Smile when he gets nervous or scared (which considering he's often fighting off sentient fire demons, it's a pretty understandable reaction). However, after he helps defeat his first Infernal he receives cheers from the crowd outside. His smile here is noticeably more genuine.◊
• Erina Nakiri in Food Wars! starts to smile more as she opens up more to other people. This doesn't go unnoticed by Soma.
• In Full Metal Panic!, Sousuke is not unattractive even in Perpetual Frowner mode—it's even directly addressed in the novels, where he's still considered very attractive, but very unapproachable, as his eyebrows are in a constant state of slanting down angrily, and his lips are always pressed firmly in a grim, straight thin line. But during the moments where his face relaxes and he lightens up, people who see him like that tend to have their heart racing BIG TIME.
• Monsley from Future Boy Conan is normally a very stern and angry woman, but on the occasions when she smiles Captain Dyce tells her how pretty she looks when she does, she usually calls him a dummy afterwards.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Hana and her younger brother are normally stoic around most people. However, when they're with Tohru and Uo, and a few other characters, they show off truly beautiful and genuine smiles.
  • Same with Yuki. Although he does smile quite a bit, it's just a mask to appear friendly and cheerful. With a little help from Tohru, he develops a real smile.
  • Kyo, a grump and Tsundere, also has this happen to him.
• Applied several times with Chairman Morinomiya in Gakuen Babysitters. Always acting like a grouch, the few times she smiles reveals quite a lot.
• Kohina from Gugure! Kokkuri-san is very much The Stoic to the point of referring to herself as a doll. When she does try to force out a smile, her face literally falls apart◊ and scares everyone. Thus the first time she genuinely smiles◊ for Kokkuri, he finds it absolutely adorable.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers: England either frowns, sneers, or is yelling at someone (usually America or France.) There are very few instances of him genuinely smiling, like after the football game with Germany during the "Christmas truce" in World War I, when his magical friends come to greet him at the meeting, or during America's childhood.
• Hiyo and Vivid!: Invoked. Hiyo strives to give her classmate/favorite content creator Aya a warm, reassuring smile to let Aya know how much she loves Aya's content, but Hiyo just can't make her deadpan face follow through on it.
• Is This A Zombie?: Eucliwood stuns and surprises Ayumu when she finally shows her extremely cute smile.
• Jotaro The Stoic from Jojos Bizarre Adventure has very rarely seen but very sweet smile◊.
  • Likewise Jotaro's similarly stoic daughter Jolyne can be radiant when she smiles.
  • Parodied in the English dub of Battle Tendency when Joseph taunts Santana by jokingly invoking this trope. That said, Santana actually does smile slightly in a piece of promotional art for the anime.
  • Lisa Lisa Joseph's mom is very stoic and business-like, but she has a radiant smile◊.
• In Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Osaragi is shown crying in Chapter 68 when seeing her childhood friend Iino smile after the election. The chapter is even titled "I want to make Miko Iino Smile". In Chapter 174, Ishigami also notices how nice Iino can be, and tells her that she should smile more often.
• Kawaii Hito centers around Hanazono, a kindly florist with a Face of a Thug and beady eyes. Almost everyone is scared of him when he's making his usual expressions, but when he closes his eyes and smiles, hearts melt.
• Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke usually looks damn creepy what with resembling Sadako and all, but her genuine warm smile was one of the first reasons Kazehaya fell in love with her. When she tries to force herself to smile though, it, ah... doesn't work.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: During the Beach Episode, Shigure teaches Kenichi how to swim to help him overcome his fear of water, and gives him a faint smile when proud of his progress. Kenichi even wonders if it's an optical illusion since he had never seen her smile before.
• Kiznaiver:
  • The main character, Agata, is an Emotionless Boy, but as time goes on, he starts being able to feel again after a failed experiment took away his capacity to feel pain or anything at all. At the end of the show, Noriko breaks the original Kizna link he gets all his ability to feel back, right as he was attempting to rescue a drowning Noriko. When she rescues him, he claims that he feels sore all over, but his face becomes a tearful smile at the feeling of being able to feel again.
  • Noriko is an Emotionless Girl that is constantly heavily sedated due to a constant flux of pain to her body. However, the the final scene of the anime is her showing a very sweet smile to the main characters as they accept her into their group.
  • The resident Ice Queen Maki finally smiles in Episode 7 after coming to terms with the death of a former friend, everyone notices and are dazzled by it.
• Kodomo no Omocha: Resident Stoic Akito Hayama always sports a bored expression, due to a fairly traumatic past. The first time he smiles (his face is not shown in the manga and it's only shown for a split second in the anime) it's powerful enough to make MC Sana blush and repeatedly ask for an encore.
• Mika and Koharu of Koharu no Hibi just want Akira to always be happy and smile. And Koharu is normally a creepy Stepford Smiler Yandere but at one point she does genuinely smile without any insanity or creepiness behind it.
• The titular character of Kotaro Lives Alone has a very serious expression most of the time, even when he's obviously happy, like playing with friends or singing the tune of his favorite show. The first time he cracks a smile without noticing is when his mangaka neighbor drew some pictures on the band-aids that he applied on his knees, which is something that said neighbor took as a good sign. By the end of the series he shows another couple of smiles when talking about how much he cares about the people around him.
• Little Witch Academia (2017) has Constanze, the teutonic witch who is perpetually grumpy, almost never speaks, and whose only interest is working in her lab. So it's quite a surprise when at the end of one episode she shows a gorgeous sweet smile to Akko. Though her body language shows she is uncertain in how to do it, giving credit to the idea that she suffers from some mental disorder.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Arisa in the A's manga really didn't want to like Fate. She was rather jealous of the attention Nanoha got from her. But she has to admit that disliking her is hard to do when subjected to the smile.
  • Arf also commented on Fate's smile when watching her officially become friends with Nanoha at the end of the first season. Given the fact that she had to helplessly watch Fate go through absolute hell at the hands of her mother for several years, one can hardly blame her for breaking down in Tears of Joy at the sight of it.
  • The Wolkenritter pretty much define happiness as "seeing Hayate smile".
• Maison Ikkoku: In a scene Yusaku reflects that Kyoko is short-tempered, jealous, hard to deal with... but when she smiles, he feels that the world is his.
• Maria no Danzai: Yashima endured Kowase's abuse and torture for an unknown amount of time after being blackmailed into becoming his slave and looked utterly miserable throughout all of it. Eventually she is kidnapped and tortured by Kowase, but before he can kill her she is rescued by Maria, who kidnaps Kowase before Yashima can notice and eventually kills him. About a month after Kowase's disappearance, Yashima's mood is vastly improved: she's shown going to a café with one of her friends during the summer holidays with a serene smile on her face.
• In Monster, Eva Heinemann spends much of the series as a bitter, lonely person lashing out at those she perceives to have wronged her, chiefly her fugitive ex-fiancee Dr. Kenzo Tenma, complete with a nasty malicious smile. However, in rare moments when she does smile with something approaching authentic sincerity and kindness, the audience is reminded of her beauty. By the end of the series, after undergoing a Heel–Face Turn and realizing the errors of her ways, she seems to have found true happiness and satisfaction in life that previously eluded her.
• In My Hero Academia, this occurs several times. Most notably:
  • After little Eri is saved from Overhaul, there's still the issue of getting her to smile again, as the first step towards her mental recovery. When Class 1-A's concert at the school festival finally does the trick, Mirio, who was watching over her, breaks into Tears of Joy. Izuku does as well when Eri tells him excitedly what she thought of it.
  • In chapter 406, no longer trying to keep up a facade, Bakugo breaks into an honest joyful grin.
• Early on in My Little Monster, Mizutani convinces Haru to stop glaring at people all the time and start smiling a bit more in order to make friends. This ends up going horribly right, as the female half of the class finds that he's surprisingly good-looking, and Haru briefly finds himself harassed by numerous admirers.
• No Game No Life:, After spending most of her appearances having little to no expression her face, Izuna finally shows off a huge grin on her face while playing against Elkia, having found fun in a game for the first time in very long.

• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!:
  • Katarina thinks she has a villainous face (and technically she does) so when she's trying to put someone at ease she always pauses beforehand to make it as friendly and non-threatening as possible, which is implied to turn a vaguely pretty girl absolutely gorgeous and has made several girls fall for her.
  • Nicol, one of her love interests, is known for being pretty stoic, but when he smiles it's the same as Katarina but in reverse. Not only are the girls charmed, but so are some of the men around him. He smiles the most around Katarina herself because of how well she understands him.
• Naruto tends to invoke this with usually dower/stoic characters such as Gaara◊, Neji◊ Sasuke◊, Shikamaru◊, Itachi◊, Sai◊ and Hinata.
• Natsume Takashi from Natsume's Book of Friends has managed to charm quite a few people with a well-placed smile.◊ He's even flustered a youkai woman on the far end of the Kinsey scale with one.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: In several points — such as after being saved by Shinji from dying in a volcano, shielding Shinji from Matarael or in the last scene of the final chapter — Asuka smiles sincerely. And in Episode 6, after Shinji tearfully berates Rei for risking her life for his just because she considers herself expendable and she expresses confusion at how to respond, he tells her to try smiling... and she does, shocking him into a brief silence.
• Emotionless Girl Anita from Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge never smiles due to the horror she's witnessed. However, when Donovan brings happiness and optimism back to her in the Final Battle, she gives a ridiculously adorable smile Donovan even claims he's graced by tender warmth of her smile.
• Gender-inverted in Ojojojo. After Haru tells Tsurezure her backstory, he shows her an absolutely stunning smile (that he'd been practicing for weeks) to cheer her up. She's so stunned by it that she begs him to do it again.
  • Haru gave Akane one after saying that she isn't angry that Akane pretended not to know about their Forgotten First Meeting.
• One Piece:
  • Discussed in regards to Nami whose been a Broken Bird on the inside since Arlong ruined her childhood, Nojiko is amazed when Usopp says that Nami smile when she's with her True Companions. When Nami left the crew and cried some Tender Tears, she hopes to rejoin them and smiles "from the bottom of her heart".
    • Nico Robin is similar, though she's a bit more Zig-Zagged, when she is introduced she occasionally smiles, but nothing special and doesn't really reach the eyes, it's only after the Enies Lobby arc that her smile becomes genuine, and that's when the magic happens.
  • The un-dead Cindry's smile◊ may be the sweetest smile in the whole series given it's from the beyond the grave and contrasts so greatly to her previous demeanor.
  • Grizzled characters such as Zoro◊, Sanji◊, Law, and even Katakuri have their faces brighten up when they smile.
• A gender-inverted example from Only the Ring Finger Knows: Yuichi fell for Wataru when he returned Wataru's ring the first time he lost it from a distance, before they met, and Wataru's smile made him fall in love.
• Ouran High School Host Club: Kasanoda has the Face of a Thug and what seems like a permanent scowl that frightens everybody. During most of his introductory episode, his smiles are out of anxiety and are equally unnerving. His first genuine, happy smile is when he sees the hurt sparrow fly away healed, and all semblance of scariness is gone in a flash.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • Though Sapphire is perfectly capable of being happy and showing smiles, as she's normally in full tsun mode around Ruby, this trope is in full effect when she finally admits her feelings to Ruby. The realization that she's his Forgotten Childhood Friend nails it down all the more him.
  • X's default expression is one of resigned depression, but when Viola catches him smiling one time, she notes how nice it is.
• Nako of Poor Poor Lips, with her kid-like proportions, is frequently mentioned by Ren to not be her type. However, all of that changes when Nako flashes one of her genuine smiles...
  Ren: The thing I want most in the world, is to see her smile.
• In The Prince of Tennis, there are exactly two (perhaps three) instances in which Tezuka Kunimitsu can be seen smiling: one is after a very symbolic match with his best friend Fuji Shusuke, the other is after his team has just won the National Tournament against the supposedly-unbeatable Rikkaidai. The last one, Inui Sadaharu even felt necessary to get on tape.
• Izumi Himoru from Princess Nine pulls off this trope at the end of the final episode, where she hugs Ryo Hayakawa after the team lost in the quarter-finals, to cheer her up, with the hope of winning next year.
• The Quintessential Quintuplets: Fuutarou Uesugi is of the Perpetual Frowner variety, always keeping a serious demeanor. During Chapters 36-37, he goes to see Yotsuba to give her something as thanks for helping him before, so she forces him to go on a date with her and they visit different places. That is, until he asks her what she wants, so she takes him to an Abandoned Playground where they start playing on the swings. Fuutarou manages to do a full turn, which makes him laugh out loud. Yotsuba's thoughts then reveal all she wanted was to see him smile and happy.
• Ramen Fighter Miki: Kayahara’s sensei perpetual depression made her look as a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl, and attempts to cheer up result in The Un-Smile… except when she eats her Trademark Favorite Food, she is so happy then that When She Smiles, everyone thinks she is beautiful and Love Bubbles appear.
• ReLIFE: When Hishiro smiles genuinely it's enough to leave Kaizaki stunned. When she tries, however...
• Rurouni Kenshin: Every frame which features Tomoe is gloom, grave, whose inability to smile caused her original fiancee to sign up as a bodyguard for a powerful samurai and get himself killed by Kenshin, can be seen smiling twice: once, when she dies, and once in a vision asking him to continue living life to the fullest. Enishi, the villain of the same arc, is willing to kill for that smile.
• Konzen, from Saiyuki, like his later incarnation, Sanzo, is very pretty but has a permanent scowl. Goku, his surrogate son, thinks he'd be beautiful if he did smile. Subverted, though, as when he finally does Goku decides it doesn't suit him at all, even though it is a completely genuine loving smile. Goku is saying he loves Konzen as he is.
• Samurai Harem: Asu no Yoichi: Ayame, who has always lived in the shadow of her older sister Ibuki and feels like her efforts are never appreciated, so when main character Yoichi compliments her cooking, even after her admittance that she had had help from younger sister Kagome, the smile she gives is such that both Yoichi and her three sisters are stunned silent.
• Gender-inverted with Sakura from Sand Chronicles. He's mostly a Perpetual Frowner and smirks when he's being snobby, yet the first two times he genuinely smiles at Ann, she blushes and admits he has a killer smile and is probably popular with women.
• Invoked in Sensual Phrase. Aine is a Cute Bookworm who doesn't give smiles a lot due to shyness, but when she does and particularly with Sakuya, she's very cute... But when she's chosen as a model specifically due to this, she cannot smile as cutely as before, which causes her quite the angst.
• SPY×FAMILY: The main protagonist, Agent Twilight aka Loid Forger, doesn't smile all that often and when he does, it's usually fake ones for the sake of keeping a desirable image around the people he interacts with in missions he partakes. (Doesn't stop several female characters from being enamored by it) It's usually Anya, Yor, and Bond who can bring out his true soft heartwarming smiles.
• Time Stop Hero: When Kuzuno Sekai rescues Fiona from being raped by goblins, she gives him such a beautiful smile that he muses that seeing it makes this hero shtick worth it.
• Kotone from Tonari no Kashiwagi-san is said to be particularly cute by Yuuto when she smiles, and outside their circle of friends, she rarely smiles. Sayaka also mentions that she can't get Kotone to smile like that.
• Umi no Misaki: Nagi feels this way about all three of the girls. Karin is seemingly perpetually happy, which Nagi finds one of her most endearing traits; He likes Shizuku when she is able to smile and relax; It's a positively heartwarming moment for him when he gets Soyogi to open up and smile.
• In Vampire Hunter D, D's (very, very rare) smiles are apparently worthy of historical documentation.
  If that boy could have seen it, he would have told people for the rest of his days how he'd been the one to bring it out. It was just such a smile.
• In Yona of the Dawn, it's noted by Yona that frequent Smug Smiler Hak doesn't smile as genuinely as he used to before their longtime mutual friend Su-won betrayed and tried to kill both of them. His rare, sincerely happy smiles tend to trigger Yona's Crush Blush and even have her thinking she should try harder so that he'll do it more often.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: In the final episode, right before Aki Izayoi leaves for Germany, Yusei Fudo holds her hands and tells her to keep smiling because she has the most beautiful smile in the world.
• Yuri!!! on Ice: Yuri Plisetsky is an extremely grumpy and moody teenager who almost always has a frown, scowl, or Death Glare on his otherwise handsome face. The few times he does smile are both adorable and extremely disarming to those around him who are used to his sourness.