I went to the post office today down here in the International District where I work, and like always, I passed a great big poster in a bookstore that looks a lot like this, only with less T and more A…

…and I thought to myself that anime is yet another pop culture phenom that infantalizes as well as hypersexualizes women, and being the unhip old person that I am, I then pondered that perhaps it is mainly a young guy thing and that perhaps it’s effect on young women is similar to that of traditional straight porn, which is to say, in a word: Eeeyuck.

Alas, as I found out today, it appears that on the contrary, the effect/word is Squeeeeeee!

Apparently there are, in fact, so many young women who want to live up to this high standard that they willingly sacrifice their adulthood comfort for genuine artificial “anime eyes.”

It’s hard to find actual manufacturer’s web content on these (perhaps you have to search in Japanese), but the various news articles on them all pretty much say this:

Anyone who’s seen Japanese comics, cartoon videos or anime art is instantly struck by the common look of the girls – big eyes that, by making the rest of the face look small, add the cuteness and sex appeal prized by many Japanese men. Since no amount of cosmetic surgery will make actual human eyes larger, some girls are trying another way to up their cute quotient: extra-wide contact lenses!

Personally, I think “anime eyes” are like a gateway drug. It’s just the big wide baby eyes now, but it’s only a matter of time before they’re badgering the dentist to give them “that cute ‘n sexy toothless grin.”

[tags]anime, anime eyes contact lenses[/tags]