eyes and character design in natsume yuujinchou 🤔
so. many of the youkai-seeing characters in this series have slit pupils.
photos, in order: natsume takashi, natsume reiko, matoba seiji, takuma yousuke, shinobu, yorishima, natori shuuichi
on a sliding scale, the natsumes, matoba, and takuma are at one end, with natori having rounder pupils at the other. yorishima and shinobu sit somewhere in the centre of this scale. here’s where the youkai-seeing outlier comes in:
nanase! has very round pupils. interesting!
but then characters who have little-to-no sight have very round pupils as well.
tanuma and taki! would include other characters but i’ve ran out of images. touko, souko, shigeru, nishimura, etc. all follow this pattern
I totally agree that the cat slit eyes is likely an indication of a character's powers/ability to see youkai (and to fit the magical vibes of certain scenes too), but now I'm wondering where ban stands on the sliding scale... since his eyes are always fully black in all the translated chapters so far, especially when natori confirmed that he came from an ancient family (presumably with strong techniques, one that gives a threat to even skilled exorcists) and matoba admitted that he has unmistakable talent? I wonder if it's just a stylistic choice or if it has something to do with the eyeball that matoba said ban was rumored to be carrying? :o