Anime's Bloody Nose Trope Isn't Backed By Science

In anime and manga, when characters get excited—often sexually excited—blood dribbles or squirts out of their noses. But is this backed by medical science? Nope!

The notion that arousal or excitement induces bloody noses (hanaji or “鼻血”) isn’t just part of anime or manga iconography. It’s also become an old wives’ tale of sorts. Well, in Japan at least.

Japanese site Netallica put the question before a otolaryngologist to see if the ear, nose, and throat doctor could confirm whether or not sexual arousal causes bloody noses.

“Bloody noses,” Dr. Kouichirou Kanaya explains, “are probably used to show in a powerful way just how excessively large the change induced by sexual arousal is.”

It’s a climax, and in manga, it often seems to be code for ejaculation.

The trope has appeared for years throughout Japan’s popular culture with various nuances in anime and manga.

Manga artist Yasuji Tanioka is believed to be the first one to introduce the motif with his early 1970s manga Yasuji no Mettameta Gaki Dou Kouza. Other manga artists liked the expression and began replicating it in their own work.

According to Dr. Kanaya, “The notion that sexual arousal causes the heart rate and blood pressure to rise is something that’s a well-documented fact; however, in actuality, sexual arousal and bloody noses have no direct connection.”

Bleeding in the front of the nasal septum often causes nosebleeds. In the case of kids, picking might cause bloody noses. There’s a whole host of other reasons that can cause bloody noses that range from dry air to cocaine use and from allergies to hemophilia.

While sexual-arousal-induced nosebleeds don’t seem to be backed by medical science, they have become shorthand for stimulation. If they’ve made it this many decades, don’t expect the trope to stop any time soon.

This story was originally published on October 19, 2012.