Light-hearted moments in Anime are frequently set up by showing a long shot of the wider area around a group of characters (or a shot of a map of the area), with the characters appearing as talking heads within wobbly multi-colored hexagonal comic strip-style speech balloons. This frequently emphasizes the space that the characters must deal with: wilderness that they must cross, an entire neighbourhood that they must search, or so forth. It can also be used as a lower-budget way to show a group of people having conversations all at once.
This is, of course, a holdover from comic book panels, particularly Odd-Shaped Panel.
Examples
- Ouran High School Host Club has played with it, including a scene where Kyouya punctures one of the speech balloons with a pen.
- Used in a humorous Breather Episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is also the only time a Super-Deformed character has appeared in the series proper.
- In Fruits Basket, members of the Zodiac may be represented by a Super-Deformed animal head of the appropriate species when speaking from offscreen. Other characters may be represented by other avatars, such as Tohru's rice ball.
- In a filler episode of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) centering on days at the military headquarters, this trope is used when Lt. Havoc finds out his girlfriend is cheating with him with his superior officer, Mustang, with comments from his co-workers while he freaks out completely.
- Demon King Daimao uses these as a Censor Box.
- Not hexagonal, but same idea; in Haikyuu!!'s Eye Catches, speech balloons of various shapes are used to show the characters reactions to hitting a drink bottle over the volleyball net, or failing to do so.
- Pokémon: The Series delves into this, be it with characters getting lost, arguing with one another, etc.
- SHUFFLE! frequently uses arrow-shaped boxes when someone is talking, both when they're too far away to be seen, and when they're off-screen.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc uses these in the scene where Makoto and Kyoko are talking while climbing a ladder up from the garbage dump.
- One Piece has used this in the past, such as when Sanji was rescued by Caimie the Mermaid, but has a nosebleed thanks to her pressing his head against her breasts.
- Frequently used in the Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note anime to show how Aya feels inside, complete with Internal Monologue.
- This is used at the end of an OVA of Eroge! Sex and Games Make Sexy Games; Kisara's pushes everyone else's off the screen and takes up the whole space when she yells in embarrassment.
- Used repeatedly in the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid anime. The dragon characters even get stylized ones based on their dragon forms (wings for Tohru, horns and tail for Kanna, etc.)
