Have you ever wondered what the true meaning of the word Ahegao is ? Or maybe other words like gesugao , torogao and kuzogao ? In this article, we are going to do a complete investigation and explanation about the Japanese faces present in manga and anime that are called ahegao , gesugao and torogao .
Both the words ahegao, gesugao, torogao, kuzogao and others are composed of the ideogram kao/gao [顔] which means face, expression, look, countenance and face. In this article, we will focus on the word Ahegao that gave rise to other terms that define strange facial expressions presented in manga, anime and games.
It is believed that the face, especially the eyes, is the window to the soul and is able to convey feelings to viewers. The big difference is that Ahegao conveys troubled feelings.
We recommend reading: Why do manga and anime characters have big eyes?
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What does Ahegao mean?
The word Ahegao [アヘ顔] literally means strange face, where the word ahe derives from the onomatopoeia “aheahe” [アヘアヘ] which describes a flushed woman with heavy breathing, easily expressing her sexual arousal. The expression “ahegao” ended up becoming a hentai genre, but it is present in all kinds of anime and manga.
Ahegao is literally when a woman makes a strange face expressing an intense amount of pleasure during intercourse. However, these strange faces can appear in different situations outside of sexual intercourse. Sounds like a strange subject to write about, but do you have a huge search rate on the internet?
This viral phenomenon ends up constantly occurring in anime, manga and even turned memes showing the close-up of a character's face showing lust and orgasm with wide eyes and with tears and sweat running. Most of the time with a crooked mouth and open with the tongue out.
How did the term Ahegao come about?
This word has been used since the 90's to refer to the pleasure faces of pornographic actresses, even serving as a tag for magazines, videos and websites. This fad caught on in erotic anime and manga around 2003, showing abnormal orgasm faces by women who were having unwanted sex.
Over the years Ahegao has defined itself as a hentai art technique to create orgasm faces. Things didn't just stop there, these double meaning faces can appear in different ways in normal anime and manga, no matter if it's shoujo or shounen.
These strange grimaces appear in anime such as Danganronpa with the character Touko Fukawa, and even in idol anime like Love Live with the character Honoka Kousaka. The grimace that Yuri from Doki Doki Literature Club makes is considered an Ahegao.
We recommend reading: What does Doki Doki mean?
Different types of weird faces
With the art style spreading to other genres other than hentai, the vast majority being fan-art, several categories began to emerge. See some below:
Clipboard mockup and school stationery – Literally nasty and deformed face, when a character makes a facial expression that is statistically distorted to represent “evil” and “insanity”. This face is not used in sexual or extreme pleasure contexts, except when he discovers true pleasure in evil.
Torogao [トロ顔] – It means hot guy and can carry a light sexual context, a little softer. This grimace represents a person who is melting with pleasure, as in the case of trying a favorite food or being close to a loved one.
Kusogao [クソ顔] – Literally means garbage face, these reddish faces represent an intoxicated euphoria, like, for example, a drunken face.
Ahegao Double Peace – How many anime characters send the peace sign and make faces for photos and other situations. This happens a lot in anime and manga of the Netorare genre. Even the city's mascot Kanie has already joined this fashion.
Ahegaokin [アヘ顔菌] – The fetish of making montages and memes of random characters and fanarts making faces of ahegao. A very popular fetish in Japan and the West, as we wrote in the article: Pantsu and Panchira - The history of panties in Japan.
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What do we learn from Ahegao?
Perhaps you are asking what is the purpose of this article? Our goal is to clarify the meaning of these words gesugao, torogao, kusogao and other faces that are quite common on the internet, in anime and manga. We must not forget that the best face is egao [笑顔] which is simply a smile, they even make memes with it.
Remembering that this visual resource used in anime and manga is not interesting and beautiful to see in real life. The most interesting thing is to note that as simple as the Japanese language is, it manages to add and create words and expressions for things that do not yet exist.
Knowing about these faces can also help us to detect something of double meaning in anime and manga that are apparently innocent, but always try to put something sexualized behind them.
Ahegao on social networks
We've reached a point where a lot of girls post videos and photos on social media like TikTok making this nasty face. We don't know if it's because of memes or because they're really perverted, but these faces in real life aren't as nice as they are in anime.
Recently a girl named Belle Delphine became famous on the internet for making Ahegao videos on tiktok and earning a lot of money from donation in exchange for benefits like the girl's own snapchat. Belle Delphine generated many controversies receiving a month with Patreon alone.
We recommend reading: Belle Delphine - The girl from the Ahegao and the bath water
The most bizarre thing is to see the amount of followers and collaborators that this Belle Delphine or even other similar girls are earning money just with these strange ahegao faces. Belle Delphine is believed to generate a minimum of $15,000 a month from her 2500+ sponsors and 2.5 million followers.
Goularte's video talked a little about it, we recommend watching it below to understand more. It's amazing how successful Ahegao is, it's no wonder that more than 1 million people search for this term every month.
What do you think about these strange faces? We appreciate the comments and shares.
