

Why is it that evil characters are sometimes drawn without eyes? One example
is Saki Arima in _Your Lie in April_. I have seen others from time to time.
Any thoughts?


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Why do bad/evil characters sometimes have no eyes?


Have you ever heard the phrase "The eyes are the windows to the soul"?

One of the first big names in manga and anime, Osamu Tezuka, developed an art
style in many of his works where the eyes of characters were abnormally large,
because it was easier to make them expressive to show emotions - as discussed
in [this](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4748/why-do-anime-manga-
characters-have-big-eyes) answer and [this](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-many-
Japanese-animation-characters-have-big-eyes) Quora article.

So, what happens when you reverse that? If you make a character's eyes small,
then it becomes harder to discern their emotions, and harder to make an
emotional connection with them (and before someone brings up, say, Brock from
Pokemon, note that while his eyes are permanently squinty they're also pretty
big). By taking a character's eyes away completely, you are completely
severing that emotional connection, and to some extent, you are giving the
impression that they are emotionless - which is often what is being expressed,
since the eyeless face is used on characters that are either acting in a
sociopathic manner (lots of school bully-type characters are depicted this
way), or who are otherwise emotionally distant or disconnected, like Arima
Saki in Your Lie.


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