When you watch anime or read manga, you’re bound to find common tropes that many fans find either humorous, repetitive, or even annoying. Nevertheless they act as either a key component to a character arch-type, or play a part in the overall story. Out of all the tropes that anime fans have come to know and love, one in particular can be found in almost any anime title that’s out there in the modern world. (DBZ, SAO, One Piece, you name it, it’s happened at least once.)

The Anime Nosebleed trope is a reoccurring trope that’s been around since the 90’s (and possibly the 80’s). The only time you ever see them is during scenes where a male anime character (or several of them) spot a rather attractive female with bouncy boobs, and an outfit that shows a little more skin than it should. Other times it happens when a school girl’s skirt gets blown upwards due to an unexpected draft that comes out of nowhere. Nosebleeds in general are actually caused by damage to the septum, and because it’s the most fragile part of the human body (due to it being all cartilage), the nose is the most susceptible to bleeding than any other body part.

So what does anime have to do with bleeding noses? Well in anime theory; nosebleeds are a symbol of sexual arousal whenever a guy sees an attractive girl, or vice versa. The individual’s blood pressure begins to rise as their heart rate increases, and throw in some ‘motivational’ thoughts and images of said guy or girl, and ‘Pop!’ goes their weasel-nose! Contrary to popular belief its said that one reason why we’re seeing this trope happen more often than other tropes could be this theory; the portrayal of extreme stimulation and excessive energy that can be found in professional wrestlers giving small cuts to themselves, could have been the motivation behind why nosebleeds are being portrayed via stimulation and excess energy.

Bottom line; it’s a form of expression that keeps a lot of anime titles from turning into hentai, however there are ‘certain’ titles that cross this line in a way that can only be described as a southbound version of a white nosebleed. (I think we all know which one(s) we’re talking about.)

So if you ever find yourself introducing a newcomer to anime, and they happen to come across a nosebleed scene, you can explain this to them. Nosebleeds are somewhat of a PG-rated equivalent to the sexual arousal that guys experience whenever their pants get ‘bigger’ if you catch what we’re getting at. (Yeah, if you’ve been to a nightclub or anime con rave, then you know!) That will do it for us on this little filler post about the nosebleed section, but stick around, because this week we launch our official reddit page known as Otaku Outlook! What will we talk about? You’ll have to wait and see! 😉