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Animal Eyes - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Aug 04 2011

Animal Eyes (trope)

"It's, like, such a bummer that 'Snake Eyes' was already taken. Dude doesn't even have real snake eyes!"

This character doesn't have normal human eyes; for any of various reasons their eyes are like those of an animal. They may have slit cat eyes, compound insect eyes, glossy and bulging fish eyes or piercing bird's eyes, among a menagerie of possibilities.

These eyes may be just for show, a mere cosmetic difference brought about through a Partial Transformation, genetic alterations or a spell. Frequently, and especially for bird's eyes, they carry Super-Senses related to sight.

The Beast Man and some Little Bit Beastly will have eyes matching their particular choice of animal. In Sci-Fi settings, characters who are Human Aliens (including some Rubber-Forehead Aliens) may also have unusual eyes. In these two cases, this is to silently remind the audience that the character in question is not actually human.

See also Hellish Pupils, which may be shaped like those of a cat, goat or reptile. See also Supernatural Gold Eyes, when golden eyes show a supernatural connection. Not to be confused with Fish Eyes, Puppy-Dog Eyes or Animal Eye Spy. The inverse of this would be Cartoony Eyes, in which animals have eyes that are human-like (although very exaggerated or simplified).

Examples:

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Anime and Manga 

  • Izutsumi from Delicious in Dungeon has cat eyes due to her being a cat chimera.
  • Shinobu Kocho from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has eyes with a grid pattern that resembles a butterfly's compound eyes, which ties into her overall butterfly motif. Her eyes don't have this design in the anime adaptation, likely for simplicity's sake.
  • Fairy Tail: The various Dragon Slayers are all over with this. Wendy is always seen with big, expressive eyes. Natsu, Sting, Laxus and Cobra normally have regular pupils, but they turn into slits when they are fighting or very angry. Gajeel and Rogue's always have slitted pupils no matter the situation or their mood.
  • Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]: Lancer has red eyes with slitted pupils to enhance his animal motif (he's said to have "beast-like agility," as well).
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016) manga, Link's eyes are drawn with noticeably darkened pupillary margins◊, which aren't characteristic of human eyes but are very common in canine eyes◊, making manga Link's "proud beast" eyes a bit more literal than his game's counterpart.
  • The dragons in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid all have reptilian slitted pupils in their human forms, though some are less obvious than others.
  • A lot of characters from Monster Musume have eyes matching whatever animal they resemble.
  • Naruto:
    • Naruto's eyes become red with slitted pupils like a fox's whenever he taps the Nine-Tailed Fox's power, and become yellow with rectangular pupils like a toad's when he enters Sage Mode in Shippuden.
    • Orochimaru's eyes are yellow and have snake-like slitted pupils.
  • Dracule "Hawkeye" Mihawk from One Piece (three guesses for what they resemble).

Comic Books 

Films — Animated 

Films — Live-Action 

  • Damage: John Brickner's first opponent, Mr. Wolf wears contacts that give him blank, cat-like eyes. He also has a mouthful of sharp fangs. It's very unsettling.
  • In Game of Death, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar's character is revealed to have lizard eyes after he loses his sunglasses. It was rumored that he's product of a genetic experiment but that never has been confirmed by any official sources.
  • In Ladyhawke, Navarre and Isabeau are seen to have these when they shapeshift in each others' presence.
  • The film adaptation of Skellig shows that the eponymous character has a nictating membrane, similar to that of birds.
  • In Super Mario Bros. (1993), King Koopa's eyes briefly turn reptilian and revert to human after he gets put into the Devo Machine.
  • Turkey Shoot: Alph has eyes like a cat's.

Literature 

  • The Seroster of The Cats of Seroster gets gold cat-eyes whenever he touches his magical weapons.
  • The Marat race in the Codex Alera take on the eye characteristics of their particular Bond Creatures, including, in one special case, a human.
  • Inverted in Dr. Franklin's Island. When the two teenagers are subjected to a Forced Transformation, the last time Semi sees Miranda for a while the only part of her that still looked like Miranda was her eyes. When it's Semi's turn, she becomes a small manta ray-like creature with human-looking eyes.
  • The titular character of Susan Gates' Dusk has hawk eyes instead of human ones.
  • In A Feast for Crows, a character says that Oberyn, a prince known as "the Red Viper", and his daughters all have eyes like snakes, but this case is mostly metaphorical. Oberyn's irises are dark enough to look black and are very piercing. Even his blue-eyed daughter's eyes are said to have the same sharp quality.
  • The Reveal of Frog Pond by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, when the protagonist blinks the nictitating membrane over her eyes at the suspicious stranger who's asking too many questions, sending him scurrying off. She's been genetically-adapted by scientists to survive in an increasingly polluted world, and uses them to see while diving under the water to catch frogs.
  • Madame Hooch of Harry Potter is described as having "yellow eyes like a hawk" in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
  • An'desha and Nyara from the later Heralds of Valdemar books retain the cat eyes they'd received when Mornelithe magically modded their bodies.
  • Big Al in The Hollows has goat eyes in his human forms.
  • The Joe Ledger book The Demon Factory has one of the Creepy Twins having genetically augmented herself to have cat eyes — along with other animalistic traits.
  • In The Legend of the Ice People, cat eyes are considered the clearest sign that someone is afflicted by the family curse, as most who are have such eyes.
  • Mercy Thompson: The werewolves have human eyes that become more wolflike if they're stressed, or if they're close to a full moon.
  • The Mortal Instruments:
    • Magnus Bane has greenish-yellow eyes with vertically-slit pupils, like a cat.
    • In humanoid form Asmodeus has catlike eyes.
  • The Sandman: The Dream Hunters: The monk knows that the beautiful young lady on his doorstep is a fox in human form, because she has animalistic eyes (rendered in the comic as bright green).
  • Wolf from the Shadowrun Wolf and Raven stories gets "killer rings" in his increasingly lupine eyes when he's about to transform, or when he draws on the Old One's power.
  • Whateley Universe: Saber's eyes turn into a cat's when she uses her night vision:

    she used her cat-like night vision, her eyes changing from round pupils to elongated cat pupils

  • The Duc in Witches Abroad has frog eyes because he is a transformed frog, and Discworld magic can't change an individual's eyes.

Live-Action TV 

  • The last episode of the classic series of Doctor Who, "Survival", the Master has glowing eyes with appearance of a catlike creature. This is because the planet he's on is transforming him into the Cat Folk who inhabit it. A cliffhanger has the Doctor's companion Ace do a Face-Revealing Turn to show that she has cat's eyes as well.
  • Crowley of Good Omens (2019) has yellow snake eyes which are a holdover from his original form as a demonic serpent (speicifically the serpent that tempted Eve). He usually wears Cool Shades to hide them from humans.
  • In the Tales from the Crypt episode "Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow", the protagonist's friend thanks an exotic crime boss's wife for the "gift" of feline eyes. Not too long after, she appears with her own pair — claiming them to be from surgical operation — and the friend disappears. The wife's eyes are actually the friend's. He was unknowingly being used as a host to develop them, so that later they could be harvested for the wife by her Mad Doctor associate.
  • The Visitors in V (2009) are shown a few times with reptile eyes instead of human ones; in the original series, this would only happen if they flat out removed their human disguises. Mike Donovan is spotted hiding in the air vent by an alien after he removes his fake human eyes — the novelization suggests this is because they can see further into the infrared than humans.

Music 

  • Kano from Shizen no Teki's (Jin) Kagerou Project has cat-like eyes that shine red when activating his power. He has a dark side that is considered creepy or suspicious. His special ability is to lie, or create illusions.

Tabletop Games 

  • Pleasure Bunnies in After the Bomb are one of the only mutant animal races outside of mutant apes who can take the "Perfect Human Looks" appearance, and they start with it by default. However, there are three things that always give their true origin as evolved lab rabbits away; their white hair, their pale skin, and their eyes, which are always albino-pink, just like their rabbit ancestors.
  • Tibbits, a somewhat obscure Dungeons & Dragons race, are shapeshifters capable of turning into apparently ordinary housecats. In addition to skin coloration that matches the pattern of their fur, it is noted that they retain their feline eyes even when in their humanoid form.
  • The Gangrel clan weakness in Vampire: The Masquerade is that every time they give in to Frenzy, they gain some permanent animalistic aspect to their appearance. Animal eyes are a popular option.

Video Games 

Webcomics 

Western Animation 

  • Batman Beyond provides the trope picture from the episode "Splicers", when Chelsea Cunningham is revealed to have literal cat-eyes due to undergoing a trendy but controversial splicer treatment.
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: The first visible sign that Kipo is part-mutant, instead of being fully human, is when she develops slit-pupiled, catlike eyes.
  • The Legend of Tarzan: Queen La, being an evil leopard queen, has eyes like a leopard.
  • Legion of Super Heroes (2006): Even though he's based off a wolf, Timber Wolf has slitted cat-like eyes.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: Adrien develops these when he transforms into Cat Noir; he gets vertical pupils and his sclera turn a darker shade of green than his irises.
  • ThunderCats (2011) employs this with the various Beast Folk that comprise Third Earth's many Animals. The title Cats, being the most humanoid, have visible white sclera surrounding irises with slitted pupils that dilate in dark settings, (in contrast with Team Pet Snarf's fully animal eyes). The Lizards often have slitted fully yellow eyes, Fishmen have fish eyes, and so on.