Exotic Eye Designs

Mikoto Misaka: What's up with your sparkling eyes? You think this is a shojo manga?!
Misaki Shokuhou: I was born with them! Weren't you ever taught not to make fun of other people's bodies?

— A Certain Scientific Railgun

Everyone buzzes about eye colors; they look good and they can be used to determine how a character might act like, but what about the rest of the eye? That's where this trope comes in, where characters can have vastly different pupil shapes and/or sclera colors, with the optional, but corresponding eye shadow. The reasons could vary from just being an added level of exoticism, to a condition (sickness or otherwise), a reaction to something, or a way to identify that they're not entirely human. The iris' inclusion only counts if they intentionally change color as a response to something.

Compare/contrast Hellish Pupils (some of these may overlap), Wingding Eyes, Eye Color Change. Super-Trope to Animal Eyes.

Technicolor Eyes is the subtrope when it's the colors of any part of the eye that are different.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• AKB0048: The idols all have hearts in their eyes and matching highlights in their hair. Graduated members have stars in the same places.
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Vestals from the New Vestroia season don't have black pupils. Instead, their pupils are simply a darker shade of their iris color. They also lack the shiny glint that human eyes have. Not Mind-Control Eyes in that it's a racial feature that even the good guys have and everyone is acting autonomously. They also fall under the Technicolor Eyes category.
• Black Butler: One of Ciel Phantomhive's eyes glows purple with an intricate pentagram inside it. This is the mark of his covenant with Sebastian, as a result of asking for 'as much power as he could give'; because a more obvious mark allows him more power, his eyes were the most obvious place Sebastian could put it.
• Black★Rock Shooter: The Otherselves have gear-like pupils, and when their real selves are influenced by then, their irises become gear-shaped. Probably something to do with their Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Bleach:
  • Ulquiorra Cifer has slitted pupils, used to further emphasize his moments of Dull Surprise.
  • Ichigo and the Visoreds' scleras turn black while using their Hollow masks, while their irises turn yellow.
  • Quilge's eyes consist entirely of vertical lines when he transforms.
  • The Soul King's eyes are black holes with saltire crosses where his pupils should be.
  • When Yhwach "opens his eyes," he gains additional irises, none of which look straight ahead.
• Bungo Stray Dogs: Yumeno Kyuusaku has one pupil as an open circle and the other as a star.
• Code Geass: Users of the eponymous power have bird-like sigils that become visible whenever their Geass is activated. Those that fall into the command of a Geass have their scleras highlighted with the color of the Geass itself.
• The Dangers in My Heart: Kyōtarō Ichikawa, along with his mom and sister, have concentric blue-green eyes that resemble targets compared to everyone else.
• Death Parade: All of the arbiters have cross shapes surrounding their pupils, a couple shades lighter than the iris. Their eyes allow them to see the memories of the dead through data transference.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demons have eyes that come with a wide variety of colors, designs, and placements. All of Twelve Kizuki have their rank on their eyeballs in the place of an iris and pupil. On top of this, they also tend to have additional unique eye features, like odd colors or strange eyelashes. In fact, most of the characters have unusual eye designs, but 9 times out of 10, it doesn't actually mean anything and only serves to make the characters look more distinct.
• Nono from DieBuster has star shaped pupils. In the still illustrations that play over the end credits, they almost appear similar to Nia's.
• In Dream Eater Merry most Dream Demons have unique pupil designs, sans Chaser John Doe, who wears a mask. The eponymous Merry Nightmare has horizontal pupils, while Chukai has cross-shaped pupils, Engi has triangular pupils, Rainsborough has his pupils resembling the Tick-Tack-Toe symbol, and Chris Evergreen has tilting H-shaped pupils.
• Ayame from Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist has purple eyes with prominent spiral patterns reflected on it, which immediately gives away that she's not a normal little girl. Indeed, she's actually a (mentally) 112-year-old proprietor of a magical supply store. It's unknown if she's reincarnated into her current body, or if she's somehow regressed her age.
• Fabricant 100: No 33 has rice-shaped lines coming from his pupils.
• In Fire Force, a majority of pyrokinetics have these. They are white when their fire powers are activated and glow when in a heightened emotional state. Most are related to their abilities, such as Tamaki having vertical slits to go with her flames resembling cat ears and cat tails on her body, and Nataku having radioactive signs due to his nuclear radiation abilities. Company 7's captain, Shinmon Benimaru, takes the cake with a different design for both eyes. This signifies his status as the only character with both Second (ability to control fire) and Third (ability to generate fire) Generation Ignition abilities.
• In the anime adaptation of From the New World, village leader Shisei Kaburagi has four golden pupils.
• The Tachikoma of Ghost in the Shell have distinctive triple-dot 'irises' on their spherical 'eyes'. This symbol (∴) is also used in mathematics to mean 'therefore'. "I think, therefore I am"?
• Mimata Noa, from Hatsukoi Zombie, has flower-shaped irises, for some reason. Kinda fits with her cheerful and carefree personality.
• The demon Dogma from Hell's Kitchen (2010) has cross-shaped pupils.
• In Himouto! Umaru-chan, this is apparently a trait of the Tachibana family, as Sylphin, her brother Alex and their mother has flower-shaped pupils when they get excited.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • The official chibi art for the series depicts the characters with spirals in their eyes.
  • The antagonist of Part 5, Diavolo, has a white (yellow in the anime) triangle, possibly a highlight, sticking into each iris, and has curved lines around the outsides of his irises instead of pupils.
  • In the anime, Leone Abbachio's irises feature a purple/yellow gradiant.
  • Risotto Nero has black sclera and red pupils, for some unexplained reason.
  • The protagonist of Part 8, Josuke (not to be confused with the other Josuke from Part 4) has eyes that are are split down the middle, and while it's difficult to tell without color both halves of the eyes are different colors. This is because he is actually a fusion between two other people.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Loki's Perky Female Minion Number 20 is often seen wearing night-vision goggles even during daytime. Later in the manga, she takes them off and is revealed to have green eyes with yellow star-shaped pupils.
• The titular heroine of Key the Metal Idol has a pair of purple eyes with tiny pupils and a dark purple rim. To add to her seemingly robotic appearance, they look as if they are perpetually wide with shock. When Key regains her memories and her seemingly lost humanity, they're brown and more normal-looking.
• In Magical Girl Site, each magical girl is represented by a shape. Whenever she uses her powers, her pupils will change into that shape; in addition, the shape will also appear as a "gauge" on her arm, neck, or other body parts that let her know how much magic she can use until her lifespan finally runs out. Nijimin defies this by using contact lenses and by applying make-up on her arm. Because a large number of magical girls are introduced, a wide array of shapes are seen; some examples are hearts, crescent moons, stars, and English letters.
• A popular dancer from Manyu Hikencho has hearts in her pupils one moment and stars the next.
• Mawari-san from Mishiro San To Yamada Kun is drawn with two irises per eye, one around the other. They stand out even more since most of the regular cast are drawn without irises, with some not even having visible eyes, while the few other characters drawn with irises only have one per eye. Mishiro also has strange eyes, with extremely small pupils and slit like irises, which are pointed out in-universe (unlike Mawari's), though it's only really noticeable in the few colored drawings of her, and when compared to the other (non-Mawari) female characters, especially her mother and sister, who have large irises (none of the male characters are drawn with irises, and the other two members of the regular cast are male, so Mawari's eyes stand out more than Mishiro's).
• The Medicine Man's alter ego from Mononoke has black sclera, red irises, and yellow pupils.
• Nozomu's mother in My Girlfriend Without Wasabi has a spiral pattern in her irises, something she inherited from her previous incarnation Winny in Peach Boy Riverside.
• Naruto is rather famous for this. Some characters' eyes are different because they're used for dojutsu (Sasuke's red eyes for the Sharingan, Hinata and Neji's pupil-less eyes for the Byakugan), but some characters have unusual eyes for no reason:
  • Kiba has dog pupils, Ino has no pupils at all, and Kurenai has red eyes with a darker red ring around her pupils (bearing a slight resemblance, especially in the black-and-white of the manga, to the multiple concentric circles of the Rinnegan despite her having no eye-based powers at all).
  • Orochimaru also has yellow eyes and vertically slitted pupils to further his resemblance to, y'know, a snake.
  • Naruto himself in sage mode, which gives him toad-like square pupils, and vertical slits in his pupils when in the Nine-Tailed Fox forms. Then he combines Sage Mode and the Nine-Tailed Fox, giving his pupils a cross shape.
• Jango from One Piece has sort or permanent Heart Shaped Eyes. Imu's eyes also have red irises with rings around their pupils.
• Idol Singer Ai Hoshino from Oshi no Ko has eyes with pupils shaped like six-pointed stars; they represent her incredible charisma as a performer, and aren't actually noticed by anyone in-universe. Her twin children Aqua and Ruby inherited this from her, but they each have only one star-shaped pupil in one eye. Their eyes eventually change to have black star-shaped pupils in both eyes, representing how they've become motivated by hatred instead of love like Ai was. Akane also gains the same star-shaped pupils as Ai when she's able to perfectly imitate Ai's public persona.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Ha-chan, the young fairy that Mirai and Riko end up raising in Maho Girls Pretty Cure!, has little pink flowers in her eyes. After she becomes human in the second half of the show, she has normal eyes, but the flowers reappear whenever she transforms into Cure Felice.
  • Mofurun, Mirai's living teddy bear from the same series, has yellow stars in her eyes. She keeps them when transforming into Cure Mofurun, which gives her a humanoid form.
  • In Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure, Lala and other people of her species have yellow stars in their pupils. Yuni is a downplayed variation, as she has triangle-shaped lights in her eyes where everyone else has circular ones.
  • All of the main characters in Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure have hearts in the lower half of their eyes, which are emphasized when they transform by making them a different color from the rest of their iris.
• Queen's Blade: Elina's eyes are usually blue, but whenever she switches to Cat Girl mode, they change color and become amber with slitted irises, like a cat's.
• Rokudou Mukuro own brand of the Rinnegan in Reborn! (2004), with red pupils and irises shaped as a kanji/number equivalent of the power his evoking in according with the Rinne Tensei.
• Release the Spyce: Kurara's pupils are shaped like four-pointed stars.
• Most of the characters from SD Gundam Force Emaki Musharetsuden have cute, normal-looking eyes. However, both Teppanmaru and Saizou are notable exceptions, due to both respectively having target reticles and gears in each of their pupils.
• The Mongol Khan and his descendants from Shut Hell have, similar to the Rinnegan, several concentric circles within the iris. It's probably designed to make them look slightly unhinged.
• Used in Soul Eater for various characters heavily under the influence of of Madness.
  • Black Star, when going mad, has his pupils replaced by white stars.
  • Stein's eyes were completely covered by large lights extending over his head like horns during the attack on the moon.
  • Crona's iris and pupils would sometimes be replaced by spiraling thorns, especially after absorbing Asura.
  • Asura has red irises and vertical pupils shaped like EYES.◊
  • A minor example compared to the others, but Maka is one of the only characters in the series without pupils.
  • Kid's eyes have two shades of yellow ringing around his pupil. When he becomes a full Shinigami, Kid's pupils permanently turn into skulls.
• ST☆R: Strike it Rich: Hina's pupils are shaped like stars.
• Tenchi Muyo!:
  • Ryoko takes the form of a cat during the first episode of the OVA and has catlike eyes.
  • In the second movie spinoff, Daughter of Darkness, the titular character Mayuka has similar eyes. Even the color is a slightly darker version of Ryoko's gold eyes. Despite her being assumed to be Tenchi's Kid from the Future and everybody wondering who the mother is, none of the characters notice this. Turns out that Mayuka is something else entirely and the resemblance to Ryoko's eyes is purely coincidental.
• In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Nia (pictured above) has cross-shaped pupils made to resemble hippy-era flowers. Her father has spiral-shaped pupils, although it's implied that his eyes changed when he mastered Spiral Energy. Late in the series, when Kittan uses his Giga Drill Break, his pupils also become spiral shaped, as does one of Simon's in the epilogue.
• Venus Versus Virus:
  • Virus' all have eyes that are in cross shapes.
  • Sumire's green eyes turn red when she goes into Berserker mode. Her pupils turn into crosses much like a Virus' eyes.
  • Lucia has a golden cross-shaped eye that she hides underneath an eyepatch. As a child she was mocked and ostracized for her unusual eye.
• Several witches in Witch Craft Works. Rinon is the clearest examples with pupils rather like Nia's from Gurren Laggan but Ayaka's irises appear to change shape slightly when she's using her full power as well.
• Cheza from Wolf's Rain has pink sclera, red irises and no pupils. Then again she is a genetically engineered flower-human hybrid.
• Amo and Tachikawa in World Trigger both have rather odd eyes. The latter's eyes don't even seem to have pupils, looking more like the eyes of a fly.
• The characters in Xabungle all have minus-driver (flathead) screw pupils. Since both the Civilians and Innocents have them, it's a property of the inhabitants of this work's Zora (Earth).
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL and Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: The eponymous Galaxy-Eyes monsters have eyes where you can see a literal galaxy in them. Whenever they're summoned, the camera zooms out from a galaxy to reveal that what we're looking at are the eyes of the dragons.
• Downplayed in Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. Ryoken Kogami's pupils are entirely white, but his eyes appear normal other than that.
• Zeon from Zatch Bell! has a more menacing version of this trope, with what looks like white 'sparks' in his pupils and white streaks on his irises.

Comic Books

• Arthur Joseph Curry of Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis has eyes that are completely black like a fish's when underwater to distinguish him from the first Aquaman.
• The Demon Mages:
  • The Drow-girl Tara has star-shaped pupils.
  • In addition, the succubus Tess is also seen with spiral-shaped pupils from time to time.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): At the end of the 6th issue, Rarity gains diamond-shaped indentations in her eyes in addition to Hellish Pupils after she is overtaken by the Nightmare Forces and transforms into Nightmare Rarity.
  • The kelpies introduced in season 10 have black sclerae and white pupils.
  • My Little Pony Generations: Shadow Storm's eyes have grey sclerae and white irises divided into quadrants.
• Supergirl: During the Grand Finale of Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, the pupils of the titular heroine become square after absorbing cosmic power. After losing her powers, her eyes go back to normal.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Adjudicator's eyes are split into a check pattern of many constantly changing swirling colors.
  • Wonder Woman (2006): While Genocide normally keeps her "eyes" covered with a spiked band they look like writhing orbs of twisting tortured human corpses, and not much like eyes at all despite their placement and round shape.

Fan Works

• Blueswap AU: The Half-Human Hybrid Steven is depicted with diamond-shaped pupils to signify he's Blue Diamond's son.
• Chlorine Grown Roses: Azusa Tachibana has a pink heart design in one of her eyes, which she was apparently bullied for in school.
• Citadel of the Heart: These are a common characteristic that pureblood Ultimorians and Ultrarians have going for them, most commonly taking a shape akin to "-|-" in terms of appearance. They're also consistently described as being cat-like, regardless of the type of organism the overall individual is meant to otherwise be.
• Destiny Intertwined:
  • Most dragons have human-like eyes, although irises with two or three concentric colored rings are relatively common, as are lightly tinted sclerae.
  • Dark dragons are described in the webcomic's lore pages as having either colored to dark sclerae or no distinction between sclera and iris at all. Their pupils are always vertically slitted, and may be white or red when the rest of the eye is solid black.
  • Half-blooded dragons usually have intermediate traits, with either slit or round pupils and white or colored sclerae. A mid-tone sclera with a slit pupil is the only arrangement that appears in both half- and full-blooded dark dragons.

Hayze has grey sclerae and vertical pupils. Lore notes in the comic's website state that vertical pupils are universal for dark dragons and common for half-bloods, but entirely unknown in non-dark ones.

• How To Drill Your Way Through Your Problems: Lagann has permanent spirals in his eyes, thanks to his Spiral Energy based powers.
• Not content on all of the characters having unique designs, the Touhou Project fancomic "Hakurei-san's Leisurely Walk" gives them unique eyes as well.
• Vanishing Act: The Stand User of Flaming Telepath, Hifumi Togo, gains white crosshairs in her irises when using her Combat Clairvoyance.

Film — Animated

• Xibalba, from The Book of Life, has red skulls for pupils. Normally, they're in profile so that he only has one eye socket in each eye, but they abruptly rotate to face forward during a certain exchange towards the end of the movie, to absolutely terrifying effect; it's currently the page image for the film's Nightmare Fuel.
  "What, do tell, is your worst fear?"
• Archie, the scare pig, from Monsters University has square pupils, like a goat.
• Norman, Mr. Prenderghast, and Agatha from ParaNorman all have faceted irises and pupils, which probably has something to do with their ability to see ghosts.
• All the primary characters in Rise of the Guardians have unique designs in their eyes based on their powers or jobs. North and Jack share blue eyes with frost patterns radiating outward from the pupil. Toothiania has purple-pink eyes that have an opalescent design in them. Bunny's eyes are grass-green with a grassy pattern radiating from the pupil. Sandy's eyes are golden-brown with a sunburst pattern radiating from the pupil. Pitch's eyes are silver with a faint yellow sunburst radiating out from behind dark pupils, reminiscent of a solar eclipse. Baby Tooth has hetero-chromatic eyes, one pink and one blue, with a similar crystal pattern as Toothiana's.

Film — Live-Action

• The Chronicles of Riddick:
  • In Pitch Black, Riddick has iridescent silver eyes as the result of an operation to improve his ability to see in the dark.
  • In The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), it's revealed that the eyes show he's The Chosen One and more animal-like than a normal Furian.
• The poster art for the 1990 film Frankenstein Unbound (Roger Corman's final directorial effort to date) shows a patchwork eye.◊ The effect isn't nearly so striking in the film itself.
• Inspector Gadget 2 has a henchman named Squint, whose sunglasses conceal spiral irises.◊

Literature

• Christopher Shaldred of Baccano! combines extremely pale irises and solidly red sclera, giving an entirely accurate representation of his personal character.
• Shokuho Misaki from A Certain Magical Index has permanent golden star designs in her eyes. Interestingly it also shows up in the eyes of the people she mind controls. This is remarked on in-universe, when Mikoto questions just what is up with the stars in her eyes ("Do you think this is a shoujo manga!?").
• In Date A Live, Kurumi's left eye is literally the face of a Victorian-era pocket watch. She usually hides it with her bangs, though in the past she used an eye patch. Spirits in general have glowing white pupils, which includes Kurumi's right eye, and the human protagonist Shido while using Spirits' powers.
• Discworld gods cannot change their eyes. Fate's are black with stars, and the Lady's are green. Not the iris; the whole eye.
• Eclipse has the Cessairu, whom are described to have eagle-shaped pupils. These eyes actually work in granting them incredible accuracy whenever they shoot someone.
• A truly dizzying array of eye designs in Katanagatari, where multicoloured irises and strangely-shaped pupils are only the start. A few examples:
  • Togame's left eye◊ (purple iris, cross-shaped pupil)
  • Shichika in Episode 12◊ (grey iris, white pupils)
  • Meisai◊ (green and yellow iris, no pupils)
  • Chouchou◊ (pale green, insect-like)
  • Konayuki◊ (blue and pink iris, no pupils)
  • Zanki◊ (pupils shaped like Shogi pieces)
• In No Game No Life, Tet's right pupil is of a diamond shape, and the left one is of a spade shape, fitting with him being the God of Games.
• Dragons in Tooth and Claw are said to "whirl" their eyes, though precisely what this entails is never fully articulated. The implication, however, is that every dragon has spiral-shaped pupils, and the hues of their iris and sclera shift and spin outward. A dragon's eyes are kept open upon their death by an attending parson to ensure they don't whirl, so no one mistakenly begins eating the body while the dragon is still alive.
• The witchers in The Witcher series have cat-like eyes with slit pupils, as a side effect of their mutation that allows them to see in the dark.

Live-Action TV

• At the end of the series finale of Daredevil (2015), Agent Ben Poindexter is undergoing a risky experimental procedure so he can walk again, which is shown to have caused his iris to change into a bullseye pattern.
• Doctor Who: "The Pilot" has a young woman named Heather with an unusual form of heterochromia that leaves a yellow five-pointed star on her left iris.
• Farscape: The Nebari all have solid black irises with no noticeable pupils. When Chiana develops precognitive powers they temporarily blind her, turning her eyes solid white instead. After the blindness becomes permanent, she has her eyes surgically replaced for ones with white irises and slit pupils.
• Lucifer (2016) has fiery red-and yellow eyes with goatlike Hellish Pupils on his true "Devil-face". He can choose to change only his eyes to scare the crap out of someone (instead of reducing them to gibbering insanity with his full visage).
• Star Trek:
  • The telepathic Betazoids have black irises while otherwise looking exactly like humans.
  • Xaheans have eyes that blink sideways.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppets: Kermit the Frog has essentially Black Dot Pupils with curved lines running through in the middle, mimicking the pupils of real frogs and serving as a recognizable part of his design.

Music Videos

• At the end of the famous "Thriller" video, Michael Jackson turns towards the camera to reveal that he has the yellow slit-pupil eyes from the werewolf in the movie.

Tabletop Games

• In earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, ogres had pupils that were white instead of black, and anyone that had ogrish ancestry had a chance of these as well. Reference to white pupils was dropped as of the game's third edition, although nothing in subsequent editions contradicts the idea, for game masters who still want to use it.
• In Magic: The Gathering, the vampires of the plane Innistrad all have black scleras and red or yellow irises.
• in Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Gusto have whirlwind-shaped pupils, which indicates that they are part of the same clan.

Toys

• Littlest Pet Shop: Several pets in the second generation of Hasbro releases have pupils with varying shapes to indicate personality types. These include but are not limited to diamonds (Fanciest), mud splatters (Messiest), and hearts (Friendliest).
• SuperThings: Colorflash, fitting his mystical sorcerous abilities and neon colored theming, has bright pink eyes instead of the white eyes that most heroes have. To add to this, he has four-pointed star-shaped white pupils instead of the black dots of others.

Video Games

• ARMS: Each human fighter has a spiral pattern to their pupils. Likely a side effect of whatever it is that gave them their ARMS, as Mechanica, the only human without the ARMS power, has normal eyes.
• BLACKSOULS: Mabel's eyes are blue and studded with stars, and has a four pointed golden star for a iris with white pupil, surrounded by smaller golden circles with white pupils within them.
• Platinum from BlazBlue has heart-shaped patterns in her eyes, complimenting her role as the series' Magical Girl. The only time when her eyes lose this shape is when her rarely-seen third personality appears: Trinity Glassfile
• Wicked from Caligula has pink, heart-shaped pupils, contrasting her otherwise-brown eyes.
• Devil Survivor 2: The female Tico has star-shaped pupils.
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Princess Sapphire Rhodonite has eyes with white, star-shaped pupils.
• The more exotic races in The Elder Scrolls like the Orcs, Khajiit and Argonians tend to have exotic pupil shapes.
• Elsword:
  • Chung has blue eyes with pupils shaped like dog paw prints.
  • Lu and Ciel both have pupils shaped like four-pointed stars, which also match their Symbol Motif Clothing.
• Final Fantasy X: The Al Bhed have green eyes with swirled, spiral pupils. Spirals are a recurring thematic element in the game. One of Yuna's eyes is colored green, hinting at her Al Bhed heritage.
• Final Fantasy XIV: While most races have rounded pupils, Seeker of the Sun miqo'te have vertically slitted pupils like a domestic cat, befitting their feline appearance and diurnal nature (as opposed to Keeper of the Moon miqo'te, who have large rounded pupils). Meanwhile, Dunesfolk lalafell have eyes that appear to have no pupils, an evolutionary holdover from their desert origins, where they had an additional occular membrane to protect their eyes from harsh sunlight. Finally, some au ras — both Raen and Xaela — possess glowing limbal rings around the outer edges of their irises.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • The newly-born princess Lucina's Brand of the Exalt, which appears somewhere on the body of all Ylissean royalty, manifests in her left eye. This is how the Lucina from the future proves her identity.
    • If Chrom marries Olivia, then his son Inigo will have his Brand in his right eye and will also use this detail to prove his identity. It doesn't actually show in his sprite, unfortunately.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: The priestess Mitama has star-shaped pupils. Her supports with her father Asama state that she inherited such eyes from him, but the player can't see them since Asama keeps his Eyes Always Shut.
  • Fire Emblem Engage: Solm royals (Timerra, Fogado, and their mother Seforia) have pupils shaped like a four-pointed star.
• Genshin Impact: There are a few weird eye design standouts.
  • Hu Tao, the director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, has white flower-shaped pupils.
  • Zhongli has gold pupils with a matching line around them which may have something to do with him being Rex Lapis, Liyue's patron god. Arataki Itto has a similar pattern, but the pupil and line are both black.
  • Keqing, Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing, has diamond-shaped pink pupils with purple outlines in matching pink eyes.
  • Kaeya and Dainsleif both have four-pointed stars for pupils. It's a Khaenri'ahn trait.
  • Sanganomiya Kokomi's eyes are pupil-less gradients from pink to blue, in the opposite direction from her hair.
  • Shenhe, an exorcist from Liyue, has purple, teal, and yellow along each iris, with white pupils. Her one known relative, Chongyun, has comparatively simpler cat-like vertical pupils in blue eyes.
  • Nahida, the Dendro Archon, has white flower-shaped pupils similar to Hu Tao's.
  • Alhaitham, the Akedemiya's Scribe, has white pupils with orange outlines in teal eyes.
  • Faruzan of the Akademiya has triangular pupils that are also heterochromic, the right one is a light blue and the left one is a darker blue.
  • Neuvillette, the Iudex of Fontaine, has almost white eyes with cat-like vertical pupils.
• Honkai: Star Rail: Huohuo's pupils are shaped like paw pads.
• In KanColle, USS Iowa has star shaped pupils.
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: The Unversed have really strange eyes. For example, the Cursed Coach◊ has eyes resembling a crying face while Red Hot Chili◊ has eyes resembling an angry face. Yes. The eyes. This is because the Unversed are embodiments of Vanitas's emotions.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: Girubokku, giant floating eyeballs enemies, are depicted in artwork with two concentric irises.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Wart, a floating eyeball monster, has an iris with four concentric colored rings — red, yellow, black and green, going inward towards its pupil.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Midna's eyes have yellow scleras and two concentric irises, an outer orange one and an inner red one.
• Neptunia: All CPUs and CPU Candidates have a glowing power symbol in their eyes when in Hard Drive Divinity, and NEXT Form adds a horizontal line to the power symbol, making the vertical line look, fittingly enough, like a plus. It should also be noted that for the Candidates, part of the power symbol does not glow, giving the impression of a gauge being filled up. Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory also introduces MarvelousAQL, whose pupils are shaped like musical notes, and not just when she's excited, or something: they always have that shape. And it's also never explained why; it's not because of some power she has, as Marvy is a Badass Normal (by this series' standards).
• Sayu from No Straight Roads has hearts for irises, and Mayday has pink star-shaped pupils.
• Kuromujō and Shiromujō from Onmyōji (2016) have red sclerae.
• The Other: Airi's Adventure: Anxious Tomatoes have X-shaped eyes.
• Orisa from Overwatch has unique quarter-shuttered eyes that freely close and rotate around to give her a lot of different expressions. By default, they stay in the form of a horizontal squint, and when she gets serious, she occasionally changes her eyes to badass crosses... and she also frequently makes an ^_^ face while happy and an X_X face while being shot at, among others.
• In the Persona series, Robot Girls Aigis and her "sister" Labrys have gray rings in the middle of their iris'.
• Xerneas from Pokémon X and Y has x-shaped pupils.
• Psychonauts 2: The eyes of the Lady Luctopus are the "Money" and "Risk" thought bubbles that Raz accidentally created her with.
• Rusty Hearts: Meilin Chen literally has stars in her eyes.
• Saints Row (2022): The upgraded character customization allows one to give the Player Character one of several eye designs: Fish Eyes, crossed eyes, swirly eyes, robotic eyes, red eyes with Hellish Pupils, green eyes with Hypnotoad-esque pupils, blue eyes with white stars where the irises/pupils should be, black eyes with yellow smiley faces where the irises/pupils should be, and eyes with three irises and pupils per eye are all on the table.
• Skullgirls: More than a few characters, most notably Valentine with cross-shaped pupils, and anyone who becomes a Skullgirl who gets their eyes changed so that the pupils look like halves of a red skull.
• Splatoon: The various idol groups showcase this. Callie, Marie, Pearl, and Frye (being Inklings) have plus sign-shaped pupils. Meanwhile, Marina and Shiver (being Octolings) have figure eight-shaped pupils.
• Iggy Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. series has thick white rings separating his pupils from his irises.
• Super Smash Bros. has a zoom-in to Rosalina's eyes (well, eye) in her reveal trailer, which shows she has twinkling stars in them. Very appropiate for a cosmic guardian.
  • Similarly to her, Kirby has recently been designed to have starry vistas in his eyes as well, which is quite fitting considering the Japanese name of his series^note Hoshi no Kirby, or Kirby of the Stars.
• Tales of Graces: In the epilogue, Asbel has a glowing ring within the pupil of his left eye, signifying that he has absorbed Lambda's power.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa:
  • Concentric rings in the iris are very common in these games, but Hajime Hinata, protagonist of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, has a diagonal line across both of his pupils, resembling a prohibition symbol, while one of the masterminds of the game, Izuru Kamukura, has crosshair symbols in his.
  • In the Gaiden Game Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, the Warriors of Hope have these: Masaru Daimon has flame pattern, Kotoko Utsugi has a speech bubble, Jataro Kemuri has a scalpel, Nagisa Shingetsu has diamonds, and Monaca has a manji pattern.
  • In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, the mastermind Tsumugi Shirogane's irises show the symbols "V" and "3" on them when she cosplays as the previous Danganronpa characters. The mastermind's eyes also turn a very bright, swirling blue when outside of cosplay, as a visual hint that they've been revealed as the villain.
  • Played straight with the members of Void in Super Danganronpa Another 2, whose eyes turn completely red for no explicable reason once their identity comes to light. In chapter 2 and 3, it's also Inverted with Kanade, who totally loses the usual concentric iris rings and gains much larger, dilated pupils for some of her many disturbing expressions, which are mainly used once her true, sociopathic self comes to light.
• In her tears were my light, the character Space has eyes filled with stars.
• In Sable's Grimoire, Eris the succubus has purple irises, black sclera, and diamond-shaped pupils. Drakan the half-dragon has slit pupils.
• In Sweet Enchantments, a magician's eyes reflect their magical sigil, such as Lucien's pentagram. Each of the main cast of magicians has their own unique design.

Web Animation

• The Amazing Digital Circus: Pomni's pupils are six-part segmented circles with a red and blue pattern and a black outline, looking like the top view of a circus tent.
• Confinement Connor gains diamond-shaped eyes and also a diamond shaped mouth when he is being influenced by the demon that keeps him alive.
• Dreamscape: CHEN's eyes have 3 dots behind the pupils.
• DSBT InsaniT: Crystal Dragon has square-shaped pupils.
• Cherri Bomb from Hazbin Hotel is a Cyclops whose eye is completely red except for a yellow X-shaped pupil. Her father also has a similar eye, though his X is in a circle with two rings around it.

Webcomics

• 180 Angel: After Molly sees the Supreme Being, she gets goat pupils.
• In Alice and the Nightmare, Alice's pupils are shaped into hearts. It's a result of her magic symbol, which usually pops on skin. Eyes are a unique case.
• Most characters in Ava's Demon have oddly colored or shaped pupils.
• Chel from Because I'm Depressed has large, oval-shaped irises, a trait she shares with her late mother.
• Drowtales has "tainted" characters who gain red eyes as a result of Demonic Possession, either willingly or unwillingly, but with two variations depending on what direction the possession goes. If it becomes a Symbiotic Possession either through a special ritual or happens naturally they gain a white spiral in place of their pupils, while if the taint takes over them completely their eyes become entirely red with a white ring in them.
• The phoenixes in Hexane each have their symbol on their eye in place of a normal iris and pupil.
• Homestuck
  • The alien troll Vriska Serket and her vision eightfold — which in practice means she has seven pupils in one of her two eyes, arranged into a hexagon. This is a trait she shares with her descendant/ancestor Arena (it's complicated). Spin-off materials imply exotic eyes are common among the bluebloods of Vriska's species, with one character having a third eye under one of their own, and another having four pupils in one eye and none in the other.
  • Lord English has billiard balls for eyes that rapidly flicker between the different numbered balls, with the 1-7 balls for one eye and the 9-15 balls in the other. Both eyes stop on 8 balls when the green sun is destroyed, weakening him.
  • The Genesis Frog's pupils are galaxies seen from the side, and his irises are speckled with stars.
  • The robot Squarewave's eyes consist of concentric circles, one of which is more contracted than the other, leading him to look like he constantly has Mad Eye.
• Karin-dou 4koma: Elza's square pupils indicate her ability to become a sage—if not for being a Lovable Sex Maniac. Youkai like Tamaryu (dragon) and Sara (snake) get slit pupils when they get serious.
• Nebula Beings: Everyone has exotic eye designs. Mr. Slick and Dr. Alma both have star-shaped highlights and their eyes look like the galaxy.
• Akila, resident Nature Spirit of The Noordegraaf Files has some... weird eyes. First off, they're not the rounded eyes of everyone else in the comic - they're shaped like upside down teardrops. Secondly, her sclera (the whites of her eyes) are actually blue, with three lighter blue stripes running vertically through her pupil. Lastly, she has slit pupils (like a lizard), instead of rounded ones like everyone else. All of this contributes to her overall "Alien" look.
• Sleepless Domain:
  • From chapter 3 onward, Undine has pink pupils when in her Magical Girl form, representing Tessa's act of sacrificing her powers to save Undine's life.
  • Magical Girls are marked with a Power Tattoo that indicates their powers and light up upon transformation. The mark can appear anywhere on the girl's body and one character, Zoe, has a flower shaped mark in her left eye. Fans of Zoe's older sister ask her about the eye, such as if she can see out of it at all or if it can shoot lasers, but Zoe's too timid to give a proper answer so whether the left eye is also a Magical Eye beyond the mark itself is left up in the air. When Zoe is seen in battle for the first time, the eye changes as she closes her other eye and aims her slingshot, implying, but not confirming, an effect on her aim.
  • After Tessa merges with Goops, her eyes change to completely white pupils and purple sclera.
• Sparklecare: Dr. Cuddles not only has heart-shaped pupils, but the light reflected in his eyes has a spiral shape.
• Most characters from Surprising Octeal use the same eye design. The main character Suzanne, however, has distinctive cephalopod-like pupils. Another character with unique pupils is the shadowy woman who's been stalking Suzanne.
• The Witch's Throne: All awakened Witches get rid of their pupils to get three purple rings on their eyes instead.
• Piscine Mermaid of Wonderlab has hearts for irises. Its eyes change into broken hearts when it is breaching.

Web Original

• The Kivouack of Satellite City are readily identifiable by their cross-shaped pupils. And the ability to see colors beyond the visible light spectrum.

Western Animation

• In The Boss Baby: Back in Business, Bootsy Calico has vertical slit-shaped pupils; not unlike a cats eyes.
• At first glance, Bender from Futurama seems to have standard Matt Groening style Cartoony Eyes. If you look closer, you'll notice that he has square pupils, as do all robots in the series (Or at least any robot with eyes).
• The members of HJ5 from Kuu Kuu Harajuku have heart-shaped catchlights on their pupils.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012): In addition to the two white catchlights as MLP, the characters' pupils have various pink and purple catchlights, while the pets have their white catchlights on their iris.
• In Milo Murphy's Law, most characters are drawn with two-colored eyes with only the scleras and irises visible. However, Melissa, Sara, Brigitte, and both Mister Blocks have visible pupils.
• The Twinkle-Eyed Ponies from the original My Little Pony. They had strange gemstones (sequins on the toys) where the iris and pupil would be otherwise.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • The two title characters have very unique designs in relation to the other characters in their world, but it's especially noticeable with Ferb, whose eyes are two different sizes. Which one is bigger varies because the larger eye is always the one furthest from the viewer. Watch closely, and you'll even see his eyes grow and shrink as he changes directions.
  • The woman next door whom Candace meets in "Thanks But No Thanks" is the only character in the show to have visible pupils.
• The characters of Rick and Morty have jagged pupils that some fans have described as resembling asterisks. Some of the aliens seen in the show also have oddly shaped pupils, one example being the Plutonians and their plus sign-shaped pupils.
• Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants has rectangular red pupils, though his are vertical unlike a real octopus, which has horizontal rectangular pupils like a sheep or goat.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In her Super Mode, Star has large yellow four-pointed star-shaped pupils.
• A few exotic eyes show up in Star Wars: The Clone Wars with alien species. One example is with the Rhodian people (the same species as Greedo) such as minor recurring character Onaconda Farr, who seem to have eyes resembling a star-filled sky with no pupils to speak of.
• Steven Universe: The Diamonds all have diamond-shaped pupils. White Diamond glows with such an intense light that her pupils are only visible as a brighter shade of white, adding to her profoundly unsettling appearance. Steven himself usually has normal eyes, but they can become magenta with diamond-shaped pupils when using certain powers.
• Minor character Lady Glagla from Wakfu has star-shaped pupils to go with her star-themed outfit.

Real Life

• Other species naturally have eyes that look very different from human eyes. This gives rise to the trope Animal Eyes (from general animalistic eyes on a character) and Hellish Pupils (Animal Eyes being used to indicate sinister intentions).
  • Cuttlefish have W-shaped pupils.
  • Some octopodes and frogs have pupils shaped like the number 8.
  • Plecostomus catfish have pupils that resemble the Greek omega symbol while constricted.
  • Vipers have vertical slits for pupils. Goats, sheep, and horses all have blocky horizontal rectangles for pupils. Housecats have pupils that vary from looking similar to human pupils to becoming narrow vertical slits in bright lights. All of these eyes are generally seen as unsettling at the least and outright scary at the worst, which contributes to their use under Hellish Pupils. Foxes also have eyes like this.
  • Fire Bellied Toads have heart shaped pupils, contrasting with their green/orange/black "warty" bodies.
  • The house gecko◊ has slitted pupils with scalloped edges, and when its pupil is fully constricted (as in the photo), it closes to a vertical series of pinpoints instead of a thin line or single dot.
• The campaign to find Madeleine McCann made heavy use of the coloboma in her right eye as a means to identify her.
• This blind screech owl, named Zeus, has eyes that resemble constellations in a night sky.

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