Here’s a story: Some time ago, I was minding my own business at the office, when one of the teachers trotted over and very carefully picked off several dandelion bits from my clothes.  I quipped, “Thanks, mom.”  But that turned out to be a mistake, because I had to spend the next five minutes trying to explain to confused Japanese staff why I had just called another man my mother.  Lesson learned—Humor’s hard to translate.

But on the other hand, it’s pretty fascinating that facial expressions are nearly universal. We may not agree on what constitutes a joke, but a laugh is a laugh is a laugh.  Same with crying, or expressing disgust.  It’s amazing that these things are coded so deeply in our DNA that we don’t even have to think about them.

Well, most of the time.  There are some expressions I find absolutely baffling.  See above.  And below.

Just what is this face?  According to Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System, it’s kind of like some variation on the Outer Brow Raiser combined with a Lip Corner Puller.  In other words, furrowed eyebrows with a smile.  And I think the eyes have to be open, too, otherwise it looks like an evil smile, which it really isn’t.

After watching anime after anime where this face appears, I’m now able to parse it as meaning something like, “lighthearted, yet halfway or possibly all-the-way serious about the subject at hand.”  Also kind of impish and curious, if that makes sense… So we can explain what the seriousmile signifies, sort of.

But could you make that face yourself?  Go ahead, give it a try.  Remember, no evil smiles.

K-ON! favors this face, as does Haruhi Suzumiya the character.

You might recall the time I wrote about emotional recognition, the autistic spectrum and emotions in anime.  I think this is something like that, or it might even be a strange new evolution of the concept.  Anime and manga, by their nature, are already divorced from many physical realities (like bad skin, or cottage cheese thighs).  But is it possible that now we’re even trained to empathize with expressions that don’t exist on real human beings?

Well, since we’re on the right thought-train, consider how many people get turned on by ahegao.

Borderline case.

I don’t think this development is necessarily bad.  As consumers of art, maybe we need these markers of emotional complexity in a medium where fully human expression can be kind of difficult.  Or I could just be kidding myself.  But in a genre so well-known for its unreality, it’s interesting to take note of the times when that unreality is surprisingly subtle.