Normally, the eye filters light by dilating (expanding) or constricting (shrinking) the hole in the center of the iris, called the pupil. Emotional reactions can achieve this as well: shock might narrow the pupil, while relaxing could widen it considerably. However, in animated fare or Comic Books, this can be very hard if not impossible to show, since a typical human pupil, at its widest, is 3-4 millimeters.note For the metric-impaired, that's 0.12-0.16 inches. This trope is a way to sidestep that difficulty. Instead of just changing the size of the pupil, you change the size of the iris (the colored ring surrounding the pupil) as well.
Your iris is no more capable of growing than your bones are of stretching like Gumby, but since they are by far the largest feature of an eye other than the whites, it's easy for artists to "expand" them to get the desired emotional reaction across.
Emotions this is meant to convey usually include love, (pleasant) surprise, desire, or awe. Animated characters experiencing the Mushroom Samba almost always get a close-up of their eyes showing this, just before reality goes sideways for them. Those effected by a Glamour, Love Potion, or Love Is in the Air effect may also get this, though those may be indicated with Mind-Control Eyes instead.
The opposite, when the irises are drawn in a shrunken state to indicate fear, pain, shock, or anger is Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises. Compare Expressive Mask. Might overlap with Sparkling Eyes of Excitement. Not to be confused with Iris Out.
When the pupils are drawn abnormally large, the eyes generally appear pleading or wistful. That trope is Puppy-Dog Eyes.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The animation style of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha usually shows an all-black pupil/iris with the anime-standard lens flare and a crescent of color near the bottom of the eye. When a character is shocked, scared, or incredibly pissed off, you can see the iris all the way around. Their eyes kind of shrink, too.
- Since just about every main character in Peacemaker Kurogane spends a lot of time indulging in Angst over past and/or current traumatic events this happens often. (The most notable characters who do this are Tetsunosuke and Suzu.)
- Done in many Reaction Shots in Serial Experiments Lain.
- Similarly used in Ghost Hound, by the same director.
- In a particularly extreme example, in Magikano, the iris opens, then the iris and pupil shrink, and the sclera fractures.
- This is used along with Hellish Pupils in Higurashi: When They Cry - probably because any character with this effect is usually in the grip of some serious paranoia.
- Train from Black Cat does this a LOT. Though, even for anime standards, his irises were already not normal, looking a lot more like a cat's. Creed also does this sometimes.
- It happens occasionally to Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!, though not too often, considering how normally unphasable he is. He's shown doing this more often during TSR, and it's noticeable in the Sigma manga as well.
- People in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED who enter SEED Mode have much larger irises, though their emotional range typically doesn't change much.
- In Naruto, this is what the 9-Tailed Fox looks like when it's being controlled by someone with the Sharingan.
- Baby Steps: This technique is used to reflect Eiichirou's shock when Kageyama suggests he knows the reason E-chan got into tennis.
Kageyama: ... you like Takasaki-san, don't you!?
Eiichirou: '[his irises shrinking to tiny dots]'' EEEEEEEHHHHHH!?!?!
Kageyama: What's with that reaction? - Chi's Sweet Home: Chi's irises got HUGE when she saw a shopping bag filled with kitty toys. Of course, she went straight for the bag.
Comic Books
- Concrete can actually do this with his eyes, dilating them until there's nothing but the black of the pupils visible in order to see in the dark. According to Under the Desert Stars his eyes "dilate enormously, adding light-gathering power to their high resolution". However, in a later story Maureen described his night-vision as being similar to that of a cat or dog (which doesn't explain at all why they turn black), so the original explanation of how they work may or may not have been retconned.
Films — Animation
- Happens to Bruce in Finding Nemo as a result of him suddenly reverting back into "a mindless eating machine" after accidentally sniffing Dory's blood.
- Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie: Occurs several times throughout the movie. Notable moments are when Arnold widens his pupils when he reunites with his parents, both when they wake up at San Lorenzo and in the boarding house, and when he and Helga widen their pupils when they realize they're most likely going to die on the collapsing bridge.
- In the Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama, Kim's iris and pupil go bigger, then smaller when she is shocked by her android boyfriend who works for Drakken and Shego.
- Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town: Kris gets these when he sees the Winter Warlock for the first time.
- Turning Red:
- Mei in panda form, Stacy, and another classmate pose for a photo like this in order to look extra cute.
- At a different point in the film, Mei's eyes grow wide when her parents show her a box of Cute Kittens to test her panda transformation.
Films — Live-Action
- Happens a lot in horror movies, when a person who's a vampire/possessed/under a spell goes from looking normal human to looking like they're a vampire/possessed/under a spell.
- Tweaked in 2004's Dawn of the Dead (2004). When the anonymous woman reanimated, we got a closeup shot of her eye turning from normal human green to that freaky occluded color.
Literature
- In J.R.Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood paranormal romance series, the vampire seer character Vishous has this happen to his left eye whenever he deliberately tries to look into someone's future or to bury their memories.
Live-Action TV
- In the pilot of Sense8, when Riley inhales from the drug pipe, we get a close-up on her iris widening.
Music Videos
- A prominent visual in Lady Gaga's video "Bad Romance."
Theme Parks
- The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera had Shaggy due this when he sees the ride vehicle very-nearly crash into the Mystery Machine.
Video Games
- One of the (many) creepy things about the Dark in The Midnight Walk is that when it manifests as a pair of disembodied and very realistic eyes, its irises shift in size, at one point even growing to encompass the entire eyeball.
Webcomics
- Dominic Deegan features irises getting huge and limpid when someone is feeling touched or romantic toward someone else.
- Truck Bearing Kibble in this strip👁 Image
- Happens to Kate Beaton when she's traumatized by James Joyce's love letters.👁 Image
- In Blip, Hester's irises are massive by default, larger than any other characters' (it's even lampshaded early on👁 Image
); a visual indication that she's the most emotional of the bunch. - Homestuck: In the end-of-Act-5 flash, Rose comes to a sudden realization about the nature of The Tumor. Her eyes widen as the camera zooms in on them for dramatic effect, and then everything goes wrong.
- In Rusty and Co., even in miniature, we can see how white Madeline's eyes get what she sees what Cube is doing.👁 Image
- Bear Nuts makes heavy use of this.
Western Animation
- Common trope in Western Animation, especially happening to children when they are surprised by something (to the perspective of a kid) mortifying. Used at least once in nearly every Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network show.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- "The Desert":
Sokka: Driiiink cactus juice! It'll quench ya! Nothing's quenchier! It's the quenchiest!
- "Lake Laogai":
- "The Desert":
- In the Dexter's Laboratory short "Chicken Scratch", Dee Dee sees Dexter with chicken pox and this happens to her.
- Common trope in The Fairly OddParents!.
- Futurama uses this most memorably when Lrrr ("Ruler of the planet Omnicon Persei VIII!") eats a hippie and then addresses an audience.
Lrrr: People of Earth, I realize now that... dude, my hands are huge!
- In Justice League Unlimited episode "Task Force X," Plastique’s iris narrows every time she has a Oh, Crap! moment.
- In Littlest Pet Shop (2012) this happens to many of the characters at times, but for the most part everyone's eyes are already so huge that this trope is almost unnecessary.
- In Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette's irises vary a lot in size whenever she's flustered, which happens often. For instance, they will grow to saucer-like proportions when she's talking about Adrien, and reduce to pinhead size when she finds herself unexpectedly in front of him. It also happens for the other characters, but far less frequently.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic provides the page image. The animation uses eye tropes heavily to convey emotions, and Open the Iris is used to show, just for example, epiphany, wonder, greed, insanity, terror, emphasis of a key phrase, and the sensation of burping up a scroll.
- Phineas and Ferb: In "It's About Time!", Phineas gets this reaction when he sees the Gadgets Through the Ages wing at the museum.
- The Simpsons:
- This is one of Homer's reactions as he chows down on Krusty Burger's barbecue sandwiches, repeated along with the action itself and fat and suchlike flooding into his system (a Shout-Out to Requiem for a Dream).
- In another episode, it happens when he licks hallucinogenic toads.
- "The Springfield Files" has a glowing alien with huge eyes spotted in Springfield. It's actually👁 Image
Mr. Burns whacked out of his gourd on painkillers.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants, Gary gets this when SpongeBob informs him that it's time for a bath... though in his case, his pupils growing bigger means he's scared.
- Work It Out Wombats!:
- Zeke's irises tend to enlarge when he's really excited about something, like when Malik lets him play with a rubber band in "Brother Day".
- In "Gift for a Fish", Mr. E expands his irises and gets shines in his eyes after Ellie dries him off.