What are Anime Contact Lenses?
In the last few decades, anime (Japanese animation) has become a cross-cultural phenomenon that has spread like wildfire throughout the world. Nowadays, anime is regarded both as a pop-culture sensation and a legitimate art form. Because it covers a wide variety of subjects and storylines, it cuts across age, gender and social borders. Morever, it has its own distinct and easily recognizable style.
Anime’s popularity has spread from its roots in TV to live-action films, video games, toys and merchandise, and even to costumes. The last is best seen in anime conventions, where fans participate in “cosplays”—a fun activity where they dress up and act as their favorite characters. Cosplay rapidly became a cultural phenomenon, with fans competing to create the best-looking, most authentic rendition of their favorite anime characters. This has given rise to a new kind of merchandise—anime contact lenses.
Anime contact lenses are actually circle contacts, specially designed lenses that change the apparent size and color of your eyes. Wearing them can give you the illusion of larger eyes by expanding the edge of your irises. This makes them especially useful for looking like anime characters, where the colorful, doe-eyed look forms a distinctive part of the anime style.
About Anime Contacts
Anime cosplayers aim to look and behave as much as their favorite anime characters as possible. As one cosplayer puts it, “we want to do (our) characters justice.” A lot of time is put into creating the props and designing the costume, but many go the extra mile of wearing anime contact lenses.
The reason for this is simple: “anime eyes” have become such a convention in anime character design. This look stems from anime’s roots in American cartoons. Anime forerunners like Ozamu Tezuka borrowed the style of drawing large eyes from characters like Bambi and Mickey Mouse, feeling that their eyes conveyed more emotion and gave characters a cute, soulful and innocent look. Since then, with a few exceptions, Japanese animators have exaggerated the size of their characters’ eyes.
Later on, fans took to using contact lenses to complete their anime look. In fact, some costumes are simply not complete without the appropriate change in eye color. For example, the character Ayanami Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion has, apart from her blue hair, distinctively crimson eyes. The same is true for vampire characters from Hellsing and video games, and some ninjas from the popular Naruto series. No matter how you look at it, the eyes have it, and for as long as cosplaying remains popular, you can bet that anime contacts are here to stay.
Anime Contact Lenses in Canada, and around the World
Anime contact lenses began as a simple fad in South Korea, but soon grew into a trend as more and more cosplayers incorporated contacts in their costume design. As contacts became available through online stores, the practice spread to other Asian countries like Japan, Singapore and the Philippines. It has also spread to the West, but not as extensively.
In the Philippines, where anime is ingrained into Filipino culture, fans buy anime contact lenses for cosplay events or simply for cosmetic purposes. The target market is usually the teens and young adults. The contacts are openly sold during conventions and through online stores. Led by cosplay celebrities like Alodia and Ashley Gosiengfiao, colored contacts are used extensively in conventions, anime-themed fashion shoots, and even short films.
In the U.S., circle contact lenses were popularized by an unusual source: Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video, where she appears with large, doll-like eyes. While the effect was computer-generated, it inspired some of her audience to copy the look using circle contact lenses.
While anime contacts are slowly becoming more popular among American teens, it is far less available in the U.S. due to restrictions placed by the Food and Drug Authority. According to law, stores must obtain prescriptions from eye specialists before they can sell contacts to anyone. A similar law exists in Canada, but there they have a distinction between corrective and cosmetic lenses; the former needs prescription while the latter does not. Nevertheless, medical authorities warn against buying contacts online without professional advice, as wearing ill-fitting contacts can irritate or even damage your eyes.
Anime Eye Colors
An eye color’s popularity depends on the popularity of the anime character who has it. As many anime heroes have Caucasian features, they usually have blue or green eyes. On the other hand, popular Asian anime characters trend towards brown or dark eyes. Otherworldly characters usually have yellow or red eyes.
Here are some famous anime characters with their corresponding eye color:
- Uzumaki Naruto, from Naruto – Blue
- Uchiha Sasuke, from Naruto – Grey
- Tifa Lockheart, from Final Fantasy 7 – Hazelnut or dark brown
- Son Goku, from Dragonball Z – Black, but green when in Super Saiyan mode
- Inu Yasha, from Inu Yasha – Yellow
- Ichigo Kurosaki, from Bleach - Brown
- L, from Death Note – Black
Naruto Contact Lenses
Naruto is one of the most popular anime series in the world thanks to its high-octane action scenes and its wide cast of appealing characters. No anime convention would be complete without one or two Naruto cosplayers. Similarly, few Naruto costumes would be complete without the correct eye color. For the main Naruto characters, the colors are basic and similar to other anime: blue for Naruto, grey for Sasuke, and green for Sakura.
The difference lies when certain characters use special powers: their eyes take on complex forms and color combinations, thereby requiring specially-made contacts. Chief of these are three special abilities: Sharingan, Byakugan and Rinnegan. The Sharingan has two forms: red with ringed with black tear-shapes called tomoe, or red with a black shuriken shape around the cornea. The Byakugan is a cloudy blue-gray with wavy patterns. Lastly, the Rinnegan has different circular shades of gray radiating hypnotically from the cornea.
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