Manga Genic promises you the eyes of an anime star, but can our reporter handle that kind of power?

By many measures, our Japanese reporter Seiji Nakazawa’s life is pretty good. He’s got his health, a steady job, and even a loving wife (who we helped him find).

But something Seiji doesn’t have, and that he really wants, is the dynamic, dramatic eyes of an anime character. As the biggest anime fan in the office, he’s spent a lot of his life gazing into anime eyes, and so when he found out about Japanese cosmetics maker Kate’s new Manga Genic eyeliner, which just came out a few days ago, he took a brief break from his anime watching schedule to order some.

▼ Seiji, who missed out on our last round of male makeovers, and his normal, non-anime eyes

Having never bought eyeliner before, Seiji wasn’t sure if the 1,650-yen (US$15) price for Manga Genic was particularly expensive or not. When he opened the box, he was surprised at how small the container was, although, again, with his lack of experience he couldn’t say for sure whether the quantity is anything out of the ordinary.

This wasn’t just Seiji’s first time to buy eyeliner, but also his first time to apply it. Luckily for him the back of the box includes not only directions but a diagram, too, which helped our eyeliner neophyte get started,

Reading the instructions, he learned that the process is more involved than the single swipe across the upper eyelid that he’d imagined. But by following the directions, he could conceptually understand the techniques to change the perceived size and shape of his eye, adding not only color but also powder to the edges of and area underneath his peeper.

It’s been Seiji’s lifelong dream to see what he’d look like as an anime/manga character, and as he looked forward to the results, he smiled at the similarity between an animator drawing a character and him “drawing” on his face in eyeliner. When he finally felt like he’d done enough work on his right eye, he snapped a couple selfies, but unfortunately, instead of looking like he’d been transformed into an anime character…

…it sort of look like he’d been punched in the face.

Granted, anime’s penchant for martial arts actions means there are plenty of characters in the collected catalog of Japanese animation who get punched in the face, and Seiji could have argued that he was any one of them. “Thug who just got beat up by the hero” isn’t the role he was looking to play, though, so, unsure of what he’d done wrong, he turned to one of our other writers who’s more skilled with makeup: Ikuna.

▼ Ikuna, who’s knowledge of beauty products is rivaled only by her knowledge of why picking seaweed up off the beach and taking it home is illegal in most of Japan.

“Hey, Ikuna, can you help me?” asked Seiji, and his colleague was only too happy to do so.

However, while Seiji had asked for a hand, he’d forgotten to ask for that hand to be extra-gentle. Because of her familiarity with cosmetics application, Ikuna worked without a trace of hesitation, and her swift, bold movements were kind of terrifying for Seiji, who isn’t used to having someone swabbing and pinching around his eyeball with such gusto.

But before long, Ikuna was finished. It was time to see how well Manga Genic eyeliner works when it’s being used by someone who actually knows what they’re doing, and the result was…

…pretty well!

▼ “Looking good, Seiji!”

Unfortunately, Ikuna had work of her own to get back to, so she didn’t have time to do Seiji’s other eye. But just imagine how handsome he’d look with both eyes Manga Genic-ized, and also, of course, if he wasn’t wearing one of the world’s ugliest Christmas sweaters.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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