About

Gesugao (ゲス顔 "Guess Face" in Japanese) is a term referring to a facial expression often featured in anime and manga to depict various characters as evil, often giving them a smirk and highlighting their eyes in the color red.

Origin

The exact origin of the gesugao face is unknown. On May 24th, 2013, a video featuring variations of the face was uploaded to Nico Nico,^[5] which has been credited^[6] with popularizing the face on the video sharing site.

Spread

On June 26th, 2015, an entry for gesugao was created on the Danbooru Wiki.^[1] On October 22nd, Urban Dictionary^[3] user Gnashty Weeb submitted an entry for the term, defining it as "any facial expression stylistically warped to depict the 'evilness' of a character" (shown below).

On December 16th, FunnyJunk^[2] user aznzeus submitted an image macro comparing gesugao to "torogao" and "ahegao" (shown below). On December 20th, the Gesugaollery Tumblr^[7] blog was created, which highlights examples of the face.

On September 28th, 2018, a thread about gesugao was submitted to the /a/ board on 4chan,^[4] where users submitted various depictions of the facial expression (shown below).

On October 11th, YouTuber Pantsu Shot「NyR」uploaded a music video featuring the song "U Got That" playing along with pictures of characters with gesugao faces, which gained over 13 million views over the next six months (shown below, left). On December 15th, Pantsu Shot「NyR」uploaded a similar music video titled "K-on Animation | Gesugao" (shown below, right). Within four months, the video garnered more than 800,000 views and 2,000 comments.

Search Interest

External References