Sometimes the character will also say beeda. This childish gesture involves pulling down one lower eyelid and sticking out the tongue. They certainly look and feel different from the more standard look and feel the anime or manga normally has. These can be rather jarring until you get used to them.
Instead, they developed a system of exaggerated expressions and gestures. Unlike American comics, manga traditionally couldn’t leverage colors to convey mood. The format required concise and quick communication of emotions in a limited space and format. Many of these facial gestures were developed for the black and white manga format.
Although generally facial expressions are easier to understand than visual shorthand like speed lines, there are some that just make you wonder how they came about. Anime also has a large range of facial expressions. However, there are a few things I left out. I wrote about the visual language of anime a while back.
