Manga Morphology
Manga Morphology
Below is a listing of the meaningful graphics that appears in Japanese Visual Language related to representations of emotion. Some might call these “symbols” or “emanata”, but following our linguistic approach to graphics, we call these “visual morphology.”
Many of these should be familiar from manga and anime, and many of the morphemes were inspiration for emoji.
This listing supplements the paper , “The vocabulary of manga: Visual morphology in dialects of Japanese Visual Language” by Neil Cohn and Sean Ehly (PDF ), which analyzes how these visual vocabulary items are used in both Shonen and Shojo manga. This analysis was part of the Visual Language Research Corpus Project . This list is not considered exhaustive, and this project is part of ongoing corpus analyses of the structures of visual languages found in comics around the world.
Morphemes are organized by their morphological types. Each example of morphemes lists different information about it:
Morpheme Meaning Morphological Type Associated body part Image reference in the format of (Book : page #, panel #). For full listing of references, see below. Corresponding emoji
Vein Anger Affix Forehead (flexible) Dengeki Daisy: 6,3 💢
Bloody Nose Lust Affix Nose One Piece
Drool Distracted, bored Affix Mouth Soul Eater: 5,4 🤤
Dread lines Fear, Dread Affix Head Watashi ni XX Shinasai: 40,1 😨
Cry streaks Sadness Affix Eyes 😭
Tear Bubble Sadness Affix Eye D.Gray-Man: 36,5 🥹
Blush Embarrassment, Love Affix Face/Cheeks Rosario+Vampire II: 8,3 😊☺️
Flush Embarrassment Affix Face/Cheeks Rosario+Vampire II: 8,1
Shadows on face Intimidation Affix Face Bleach: 5,1
Shadow under eye Sickness Affix Eyes Skip Beat: 12,5
Shade covered eyes Anger Affix Eyes Love so Life: 11,2
Shadow around eyes Fear Affix Eyes
Giant sweat drop Anxiety Affix Forehead 😓😅
Sweat drops around head (Plewds) Flustered, Anxiety Affix Head Naruto
Sweat drops all over face Fear, Anxiety Affix Face Fairy Tale: 34,3
Breath mushroom Relief Affix Mouth Kaichou Wa Maid Sama: 19,6 😮💨
Sleep bubble Sleep Affix Nose 😪
Breath bubbles (carriers) Panting, Exhaustion Affix Mouth/head Naruto: 28,5
Zoom Lines Focal Attention Affix Naruto 33,2
Circumfixing motion lines Shaking, strain, slight movement Affix Body/Body Part Naruto: 42,3
Glowing face/body Excitement Affix Head/Body Naruto 16,4
Scopic Spark Surprise, Realization Affix Head Naruto: 30,3
Scopic Star Surprise, Realization Affix Eyes Bleach: 3,2
Scopic lines Surprise, Realization Affix Eyes
Upfix – Hearts Love Affix Head Rosario+Vampire II: 16,5 🥰
Upfix – ? Curious, confused Affix Head Fairy Tail: 16,2
Upfix – ! Surprise Affix Head Fairy Tail: 7,5
Upfix – Spikes Excitement Surprise Affix Head Naruto: 20,4
Steam Frustration Affix Nose Naruto: 29,6 😤
>< – Eyes Clenched eyes, happiness, pain, anger (depending on mouth) Eye-Umlaut Eyes Love so Life: 34,1 😆😫😣😖
Spiral Eyes Nausea, Dizziness Eye-Umlaut Eyes Fairy Tail: 3,2 😵💫
Dot eyes Hopeless, Overwhelmed Eye-Umlaut Eyes Bleach: 8,3
Glowing Eyes Anger Eye-Umlaut Eyes Kaichou Wa Maid Sama: 20,7
Heart eyes Love Eye-Umlaut Eyes Fairy Tail: 11,1 😍
Lightening eyes Rivalry, anger Eye-Umlaut Eyes Naruto
Circle eyes Confusion Eye-Umlaut Eyes Love So Life: 35,3
Bubble eyes Coercion via cuteness Eye-Umlaut Eyes Beelzebub: 13,6 🥺
Popped eyes Surprise Eye-umlaut Eyes Beelzebub: 10,1
No eyes Creepy, unreal Eye-Umlaut Eyes
Empty eyes Disbelief Eye-Umlaut Eyes D.Gray-Man: 12,5
Tiny pupils Anger, drive Eye-Umlaut Eyes Bleach: 21,1
No pupils Disbelief Eye-Umlaut Eyes Rosario + Vampire: 21,2
Monkey lip Lustful Suppletion Mouth Soul Eater: 51,2
Pointed teeth Plotting-Mal-intent Suppletion Mouth
Cat Mouth Smug Suppletion Mouth (:3)
Dog/Cat ears/hands Embarrassment, playful Suppletion Ears
Giant yelling head Anger Suppletion (?) Head Naruto: 29,5
Chibi (Superdeformation) Exaggeration, overwhelming emotion Suppletion Head/Body Skip Beat: 25,7
Giant Mouth Surprise, anger Suppletion (?) Mouth Soul Eater: 51,3
Giant Teeth Pain, anger Suppletion (?) Mouth Naruto: 20,1
Giant Ear Eavesdropping Suppletion(?) Ear Watashi ni XX Shinsasai: 14,4
Munch’s Scream Fear, Shock Suppletion Body Ranma 1/2 😱
Loss of hands Loss of control Suppletion Hands Azumanga Daioh
Shock pose Surprise Suppletion Body/hands Ranma 1/2
Paperification Depression Suppletion Body Skip Beat: 33,8
Two heads Conflicting emotion Reduplication Head Fairy Tail: 4,2
Sparkles Happiness, elation Background Skip Beat: 2,1
Fire Rage Background Ranma 1/2
Vertical line gloom Depression, sadness Background Beelzebub: 6,1
Flower petals Happiness Background Kaicho wa Maid-sama: 16,4
Hearts Love, Lust Background
Fuzzy circles/bubbles Dream-like, fantasizing Background Skip Beat: 11,1
Black Focus, ominous Background Naruto: 13,5
Lightning Anger Background Love so Life: 6,2
Wavy Lines Fear Background Ranma 1/2
Entire person shaded (white background) Disbelief, shock Background-foreground relation D.Gray-Man: 30,2
Everything shaded Ominous Background Beelzebub: 16,4
Swirling clouds/Fog Murderous intent, anger Background Yotsubato: 79
Graphic References
1. Hoshino, Katsura. (2004). D.Gray-Man . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-54. 2. Ikeda, Akihisa. (2004). Rosario+Vampire II . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-47. 3. Isayama, Hajime. (2009). Shingeki no Kyojin [Attack on Titan] . Kodansha Comics. Chapter 1, 1-49. 4. Kato, Kazue. (2009). Ao no Exorcist . Shueisha. Chapter 1, 1-65. 5. Kishimoto, Masashi. (1999). Naruto . Shueisha. Chapter 1, 1-50. 6. Kubo, Tite. (2001). Bleach . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-53. 7. Mashima, Hiro. (2006). Fairy Tail . Kodansha Comics. Chapter 1, 1-72. 8. Oda, Eiichiro. (1997). One Piece . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-50. 9. Okubo, Atsushi. (2004). Soul Eater . Yen Press. Chapter 1, 1-59.
10. Tamura, Ryuhei. (2008). Beelzebub . Shueisha. Chapter 1, 1-56. 11. Fujiwara, Hiro. (2005). Kaichou wa Maid-sama ! Tokyopop. Chapter 1, 1-31. 12. Hazuki, Kanae. (2012). Say “I love you” . Kodansha Comics. Chapter 1, 1-43. 13. Hino, Matsuri. (2004). Vampire Knight . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-48. 14. Kouichi, Kaede. (2008). Love so Life . Hakusensha. Chapter 1, 1-43. 15. Minami, Kanan. (2007). Kyo, Koi o Hajimemasu . Shogakukan. Chapter 1, 1-39. 16. Motomi, Kyousuke. (2007). Dengeki Daisy . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-47. 17. Nakamura, Yoshiki. (2002) Skip Beat . Viz Media. Chapter 1, 1-48. 18. Sakurakoji, Kanoko. (2007). Black Bird . Shogakukan. Chapter 1, 1-38. 19. Tanaka, Meca. (2007). Faster than a Kiss . Hakusensha. Chapter 1, 1-42. 20. Toyama, Ema. (2009). Watashi ni XX Shinasai! Kodansha Comics. Chapter 1, 1-41. 21. Azuma Kiyohiko. (2007) Azumanga Daioh: The Omnibus . AD Vision. 22. Takhashi, Rumiko. Ranma 1/2 . Viz Media. 23. Azuma Kiyohiko. (2006) Yotsubato . Vol.5, Tokyo: Media Works.