Wingding Eyes are a common thing in Anime & Manga.
- Maya from Ace Attorney (2016) briefly gets excited star-eyes when looking at a naughty magazine.
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Deserted Island Diary: In "Feel our Passion, K.K. Slider!", everyone on the island puts on a performance to lure K.K. Slider to their island. When Tom Nook says that they just need one more push, all the performers are too exhausted, with Coroyuki having swirls in his eyes.
- In Area no Kishi, the spiral type is sported by protagonist Kakeru after his Handsome Lech teammate Kouta puts him through several wrestling holds trying to find out more about Kakeru's childhood friend, Seven.
- Downplayed as the second chapter of Asteroid in Love is adapted as part of the first episode. When Ao gets overwhelmed by Mira's messages, exclamation marks are drawn over her eyes with a layer of transparency filter.
- A somewhat stealthy example in Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri once ended up staring dumbfounded at Suzu's bare chest. While his pupils don't look blatantly out of the ordinary, closer examination shows they're drawn exactly like nipples.
- At the cliffhanger of episode 1 of The Big O, arcane symbols appear in Dorothy's eyes as she looks up at her Humongous Mecha "sister" Dorothy One. It's possible the mecha was somehow taking control of her (since she's next seen wired into it), but it's not really clear.
- Black Clover: Asta's eyes turn into sparkles when he gets excited about something. Julius Novachrono as well whenever he sees cool magic.
- In Black★Rock Shooter, whenever a character is being affected by their "Otherself", their irises become gear-shaped.
- Bleach: The time skip leading to The Lost Agent Arc reveals that Orihime has practiced making face gags; Orihime can now make her eyes look like the number 3.
- In Cells at Work!, bacteria and other infections get X eyes when they are killed.
- Misaki Shokuhou in A Certain Scientific Railgun is known as the Queen of Tokiwadai and possesses mind control powers. Those under her powers usually (but not always) display small stars in their eyes. Her own eyes have massive stars in them and when Misaka finally calls her out on her appearance she says she was just born like that. For a while, fans speculated that the blonde girl we see was just another puppet of the real Misaki, but it seems not.
- Occurs in several Doraemon stories, either in the manga, anime or movies.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King notably have Doraemon making four of these in two seconds
◊. - Another famous example is Nobita's 3/ε shaped eyes when he isn't wearing his glasses. That shape became so iconic that it is sometimes called "Nobita eyes".
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King notably have Doraemon making four of these in two seconds
- Galaxy Angel: In one episode, Ranpha's eyes turn into male units upon first meeting a male android. A nude male android.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers:
- When visiting Japan, America's eyes turned into spirals when he saw how small a large order of fries was.
- Germany's eyes once turned into stars when a ninja randomly appeared in a movie.
- Kamichama Karin often uses spiral eyes to show confusion.
- In the Kingdom Hearts manga some of the characters will get the X-eyes when they get knocked out. Especially we will see them most on more cartoony characters like Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, or Pete. But also the humans for example Sora, Roxas, Olette, or Aladdin will get those X-eyes when they get attacked by an enemy or get knocked out.
- Although it happens a few times, this also happens to Kirby in this episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! where, in one scene, Kirby tries to unsuccessfully jump over the rope, thus getting hit in the face, getting the + type in the process.
- Lucky Star: Characters' eyes are known to display themselves as hashtags, vertical lines, or tiny rings around white. Sometimes, they can become a sideways X, too.
- Subaru of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS expresses her great appreciation for good ice cream by having her eyes turn into sparkly hearts. After Hayate first summons the Wolkenritter in a flashback in the sixth episode of A's and faints from the shock, her eyes turn into spirals by the time Vita approaches her.
- March Comes in Like a Lion: When Momo meets Nikaidou for the first time while mistaking him for one of her beloved cartoon characters, Bodoro, her irises are filled with flower symbols as she's introducing herself, reflecting her excitement.
- My Hero Academia: Mei Hatsume's eyes look like reticles: probably a quirk of her Quirk (Zoom, which lets her focus on things in the distance).
- Mysterious Joker makes use of this trope. Whenever Hachi or Joker are particularly happy about something, usually a MacGuffin, their eyes take on this appearance.
- Negi Springfield in Negima! Magister Negi Magi gets the Spirals version when he's knocked out by a flying door, as shown on YouTube here at about 2:40.
- Similar to the comic example below, Mako from Nerima Daikon Brothers has heart-shaped reflections in her sunglasses.
- Episode 5 of Nurse Witch Komugi features the heroine with the yen sign in her eyes.
- One Piece:
- Nami's eyes occasionally change to the symbol for Beri when there's a potential profit to be made, Sanji's eyes change to hearts whenever he's swooning over one of the girls, and in one chapter Luffy's eyes changed to takoyaki to show just how much he craved the food. And recently he seems to have expanded to meat eyes.
- Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper are also especially prone to starbursts when they see something sufficiently awesome. When Luffy heard of Chopper's seven transformation power, even his Speech Bubbles got sparkly.
- The characters even point this out sometimes!
- If a character shows angular spirals, it tends to mean the character is not of sound mind. Such as in Alabasta when Luffy ate something he shouldn't have and started angrily lashing out at everything he saw.
- The Reverie arc has a mild but cute example: when Vivi correctly guessed Luffy had saved Dressrosa, Rebecca teared up so much, her eyes turned into puddle shapes.
- When the Straw Hats entered Wano via Luffy grabbing onto two giant carps to climb a giant waterfall, Carrot was so excited that her eyes turned into stars.
- The PaRappa the Rapper anime has a ton of these. Also, since some of the characters have a few of those, the main character, known as the rapping dog who always believes, gets those a lot of times, Once per Episode. It can also be a running gag also in some episodes.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- Spirals = KO. Otherwise, they're probably down but not out. Pokémon as well humans will often get those spiral eyes, especially in later seasons.
- Sometimes they'll get X-eyes when they get knocked out or shocked, although this was more used in the early seasons, before the spiral eyes are prominently shown for defeated Pokémon. For the humans, X-eyes are usually used when someone is comically beaten up; as such, they are commonly seen on James.
- Also, heart eyes are used in the anime, sometimes when a Pokemon is hit by Attract. There are also fire-eyes, star-eyes, you name them.
- Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl introduced an open + symbol to denote the Sleep status.
- Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon had one occasion as a reference; when Ash’s Rowlet gets the idea to find a replacement for Meltan’s stolen nut, its eyes turn into Game Freak logos (complete with a star as portrayed when the Game Freak logo appears in some of the Pokémon games), and while that occurs, a Nintendo Game Boy also appears above Rowlet’s head.
- Pokémon movies, on the other hand, tend to drop this after the first couple minutes in favor of more serious effects.
- Pretty Cure gets at least one moment per season, usually in relation to food:
- Futari wa Pretty Cure: Mepple gets X eyes when Nagisa shakes his commune like crazy.
- Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star: Saki gets starry eyes while gazing at a chocolate cake.
- Fresh Pretty Cure!: Love gets sparkle eyes when she's presented with the opportunity to be a model.
- HeartCatch Pretty Cure!: Erika gets sparkle eyes when the mascots tell her she's their best friend.
- Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Dodori is frequently drawn with sparkle eyes, however in group shots with all the other Fairy Tones, he has regular eyes.
- Smile PreCure!: Cure Peace gets sparkle eyes when she's presented with a bowling challenge.
- Doki Doki! PreCure: In Episode 4, Cure Heart gets spiral eyes when she gets carsick.
- HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: Megumi gets heart eyes when she first meets Blue.
- Go! Princess Pretty Cure: Yui gets sparkle eyes when she tries Ibuki's dorayaki.
- Maho Girls Pretty Cure!: Mofurun is typically drawn with starry eyes.
- KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: Ichika gets sparkle eyes when her cream puffs are finally ready.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Hana gets starry eyes while praising Homare's skills.
- Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Elena's little siblings get sparkle eyes while watching Fuwa eat a donut.
- Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Nodoka gets heart eyes when she eats some delicious food.
- Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure: Manatsu and Sango get sparkle eyes when they try Asuka's food.
- Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: Pam-Pam and Rosemary both get starry eyes when they try some delicious takoyaki.
- Soaring Sky! PreCure: Mashiro gets starry eyes when showing off the Shiny Powder Fragrance.
- Wonderful Pretty Cure!: In Episode 3, Iroha gets sparkle eyes when she sees the entirety of the Niko Garden.
- Lilie from Princess Tutu often gets hearts in her eyes◊ when Ahiru does something she deems 'cute'.
- Rurouni Kenshin has our main hero get swirly-eyed in the more lighthearted scenes.
- Happens in Sailor Moon on many occasions, most noticeable with the Heart Eyes Usagi displays when meeting Tuxedo Mask and then again when seeing Rei for the first time.
- Sakura no Ichiban!: Asami has swirls in her eyes in the first chapter when she gets knocked out by the guys kidnapping her and Misao.
- SD Gundam Force, being the more humorous Gundam series, has the characters making these sort of eyes when the moment requires. In one episode, Captain Gundam gets an upgrade with the ability to create these at will, because he wanted to make facial expressions.
- One panel of Sgt. Frog featured Keroro with a yen symbol in one eye and an American dollar sign in the other. Giroro's eyes sometimes go up in actual flames.
- In one episode of the anime, Momoka's eyes have little flames in them as she thinks of her determination to get close to Fuyuki on an upcoming trip, which then turn to little rainclouds when he mentions it might rain.
- On the merchandise side, a sticker book of Wingding Eyes for all the model kits has been released.
- Slayers: The last episode in Slayers Next when Gourry and Lina reappear hugging after disappearing into the Sea of Chaos and Lina clocks Gourry, giving him the X-eyes.
- All the humanoid aliens in Space Pirate Mito have starbursts for pupils. Aoi, who is half-alien, half-human, has one normal pupil and one starburst.
- Super Milk Chan will often have yen signs appear in her eyes in slot-machine style whenever the topic of making money comes up; other, oddball symbols have been known to appear as well.
- Tamagotchi: Nine times out of ten, Himespetchi's eyes will turn into red-colored hearts at the climax of her daydreams about her crush, Mametchi. It often concides with her saying her Catchphrase "gigakyun".
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- Extremely high levels of blood heat are indicated by spirals in the characters' pupils.
- One fairly unique example of this trope occurs late in the series when Kittan's eyes momentarily transform into stars upon seeing the giant stars on Yoko's latest outfit. Guess where they are.
- Simon demonstrates the "insanity/rage" eyes — pupils with nothing but empty circles around them — for a few episodes following Kamina's death.
- The "Spiral eyes" are, like a significant portion of Gurren Lagann, a reference to Getter Robo, where one of the signs of a human being supercharged by Getter Rays was their irises becoming spirals.
- Dropkick on My Devil: Spiral eyes, blank eyes etc. appear very often. However, the spiral eyes could be used a lot.
- Onegai My Melody: Spiral eyes (Also seen in both Sukkiri and Kuru Kuru Shuffle openings) mostly appear in the show along with the blank eyes.
- In one chapter of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Yugi curses a TV producer to expose his greed on television, and the producer gets the kanji for "greed" in his eyes (the translated version by Viz Media uses yen signs).
