Most Iconic Anime Characters With An Eyepatch

One of the best parts about character design is the fact that certain elements can be reused multiple times and even be turned into tropes without feeling trite or unoriginal in the hands of the right artist. Among the most common accessories given to anime characters as the “cherry on top” is the mysterious eyepatch.

A simple eyepatch can make just about any character look edgy or tough, giving viewers an idea of how they have faced pain or suffering in the past but still bravely managed to overcome it nevertheless. Here are some of the most iconic anime characters that wear a slick eyepatch.

Updated November 3, 2024, by Hamza Haq: Identifying traits for a character are an easy way to differentiate a character from another and help them stick in viewers’ minds forever. This can be anything from facial scars, tattoos on the body, or even a missing eye covered by an eyepatch. A character that’s different from the norm will be instantly more recognizable than one who fits the mold. This trope has been used extensively in anime for the reasons listed above, but few characters manage to own these traits and make them synonymous with their own name.

17 Pirate Bananya

Bananya

• Reason For Eyepatch – Pirate tactic/aesthetic

The most essential accessory for just about any self-respecting pirate, aside from a nifty hat, is, of course, an eyepatch. Pirate Bananya is the famous banana cat that is always in search of hidden treasure. In addition to his signature eyepatch, he sports a typical skull pirate hat with a feather as well as a little hook on his right hand.

Surprisingly enough, the adorable Pirate Bananya is voiced by Yuki Kaji, the voice behind Attack On Titan‘s Eren Jeager and My Hero Academia‘s Shoto Todoroki. Don’t be fooled by his cute outer appearance; he’s much fiercer than he looks!

16 Taupy Toplan (Toppy Topran)

Sands Of Destruction

• Reason For Eyepatch – Unknown

Sands Of Destruction is a 2008 anime based on the video game of the same title and features a small bear-like creature named Taupy (often time also spelled “Toppy”). Despite his adorable and teddy-like appearance, Taupy is not an enemy one can afford to underestimate! For starters, Taupy isn’t actually a bear. Taupy is a Feral bounty hunter that is one of the most skilled fighters among his group and even acts as a mentor for protagonist Kyrie Illunis.

Although Taupy does don an eyepatch, he has not stated if it was for the sake of covering an injury or mere aesthetics.

15 Gozu

Pokemon Sun & Moon

• Reason For Eyepatch – Aesthetic (?)

Gozu is a recurring character in the Pokémon series. He is a member of the notorious Team Rocket and naturally takes the role of an antagonist. Gozu is one of the more intimidating members of Team Rocket and serves as the Elite Officer of the prestigious unit called the Matori Matrix.

Despite always wearing an eyepatch, Gozu doesn’t actually have anything wrong with his right eye. Perhaps he simply thought it’d help him look fit for the role of a Team Rocket unit leader.

14 Jack Of The Chicky Chicky Gang

Hamtaro

• Reason For Eyepatch – Unknown

There’s no such thing as an anime without an antagonist for the main character to go up against; for Hamtaro‘s Ham-Hams, they have the Chicky Chicky Gang. Similar to the Chicken Trio (despite their name, are three roosters and also have an eyepatch-wearing member), the Chicky Chicky Gang are the enemies of the Ham-Hams. The gang is a group of five chicks owned by Charlotte, a chicken farmer.

While their names remained a mystery in the animated series, three of the five chicks had their names revealed in Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue. Marly is the smallest chick as well as the gang’s leader, Mike is the largest of the chicks, and Jack is the chick with the eyepatch. However, the reason for Jack’s eyepatch is unknown. Did he lose an eye? Did he simply copy the Chicken Trio? And if so, why does the rooster from the Chicken Trio wear one in the first place?

Hopefully, Hamtaro fans finally have their closure at one point and find out the names of Jack’s remaining two gang members.

13 Nice Holystone

Baccano!

• Reason For Eyepatch – Lost eye in an explosion

Baccano! is a rare show that doesn’t have a set protagonist for viewers to root for because the story is told through multiple perspectives, constantly shifting throughout the series. One of the more notable characters is Nice Holystone, the eventual wife of the gang leader Jacuzzi and a powerful demolition expert in the underworld. Nice was the victim of an accidental explosion in her youth, resulting from her own mistake when handling explosives. The incident not only scarred her body forever but destroyed one of her eyes completely and damaged the other one severely. To deal with her affliction, she wears a black eyepatch over her right eye and a pair of tinted glasses over them to see clearly.

Nice’s eyepatch is not just for show. In the series, she uses the empty hole where her eye used to be to hide a miniature bomb underneath the eyepatch as a trump card, sneaking it past observers at a crucial moment. She doesn’t have a glass eye underneath, preferring to keep the cavity hollow.

12 Megumin

KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!

• Reason For Eyepatch – To “conceal her magic powers”

KonoSuba‘s Megumin is the cast’s resident chunni. “Chunni” is short for the Japanese term “chunibyo” (sometimes spelled “chunnibyou”) that is used to describe characters (often young ones) that often have grandiose delusions about their self-importance, power, or knowledge. In short, chuuni syndrome is when a character (or perhaps an unfortunate real-life person) acts as if they are the main character in their very own fantasy anime.

Megumin is a perfect example of this phenomenon. When on the topic of her mysterious eyepatch, she enthusiastically explains that she must wear it as a means to conceal her magic powers. When asked if the eyepatch acts as a seal, she comes clean and admits that she just enjoys how the eyepatch looks and compliments her outfit!

11 Himeno

Chainsaw Man

• Reason For Eyepatch – Lost eye in a contract with a devil

Himeno is part of the government’s special Devil Hunter squad and is paired with her best bud, Aki Hayakawa. Being a Public Safety Devil Hunter, Himeno needs to adequately protect herself against rogue devils. One of the best ways to fight against devils is by recruiting the help of their own kind. In order to utilize the powers of a devil, one must sacrifice something as payment for their service.

In Himeno’s case, she had given up her right eye in exchange for summoning the Ghost Devil’s powerful arms. In the end, a single eye wasn’t too bad of a price to pay, considering the Ghost Devil’s incredible strength.

10 Hange Zoe

Attack On Titan

• Reason For Eyepatch – Lost eye in an explosion

Hange Zoe begins her journey in the Attack On Titan world rather bright and starry-eyed. Way back in season one, Fourth Squad Leader, Hange, was in charge of researching titans when very little was known about them at the time. However, later in the series, Hange begins to harden and become cold, as the life of a Survey Corps leader is not for the faint of heart.

Hange eventually switches out their signature goggles for an eyepatch and a pair of eyeglasses (for their one good eye) after a dangerous mission. During a fight, Hange gets severely injured by the explosion caused by a titan transformation. Hange luckily survived the encounter in the end but lost their eye in the process.

9 Midari Ikishima

Kakegurui/ Kakegurui Midari

• Reason For Eyepatch – Stabbed her own eye out with an ink pen

Midari is a second-year student at Hyakkaou Private Academy and is a member of the student council as well as the president of the beautification council. Midari is an incredibly dangerous girl that has masochistic and violent tendencies.

Midari wears her signature eyepatch to cover up the eye she had gouged out with an ink pen as a means to repay a gambling debt of 300 million yen she owed to the student council president and major series antagonist, Kirari Momobami.

8 Minene Uryuu

Future Diary

• Reason For Eyepatch – Lost eye in the Survival Game

Minene Uryuu is introduced as the ninth Diary Holder in the series Future Diary, making her one of the thirteen contestants in Deus’s Survival Game, a means for the being called Deus Ex Machina to decide who would succeed his incredible powers of time and space. During the events of Future Diary, Minene Uryuu is one of the main antagonists and the holder of the ‘Escape Diary,’ something that allows her to escape seemingly impossible situations but with limitations. In Future Diary: Mosaic, the spin-off of the original series, she serves as the anti-hero protagonist.

Minene is a demolition expert and relies on this specialization to assassinate and attack anyone who crosses her. She loses her left eye during the events of the first Survival Game, a result of an assault by Yukiteru Amano, the protagonist of the series, as he tries to destroy her Diary. She receives her eyepatch after being imprisoned and operated upon by Yomotsu Hirasaka, the twelfth Diary Owner. Unlike a normal eyepatch, hers has a leather band with three holes directly in front of the eye socket.

7 Fuhrer King Bradley

Fullmetal Alchemist

• Reason For Eyepatch – To cover his Ultimate Eye

King Bradley is one of the main antagonists of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. He is a human-based homunculus and was known as Wraith in the manga as well as the 2009 animated reboot, FMA: Brotherhood, but was known as Pride in the 2003 anime series.

Bradley’s left eye is covered with his signature eyepatch to hide his “Ultimate Eye,” which is marked with the Ouroboros. This ability allows Bradley to predict his opponent’s moves and to see every variable or outcome in order to fight and defeat an opponent as efficiently as possible.

6 Kakashi Hatake

Naruto

• Reason For Eyepatch – To cover his sharingan

Kakashi is one of the most talented shinobi in all of Konoha Village. In Naruto’s earlier days in Team 7 with Sasuke and Sakura, Kakashi was their lazy yet reliable teacher. While Kakashi currently has his Sharingan, he wasn’t born with it.

During the Third Shinobi World War, Kakashi lost his eye to a sneak attack when protecting his dear friend, Obito. Obito, a member of the Uchiha clan and having Sharingan, gave Kakashi his eye to replace the one he had lost in battle as his last dying act to repay his friend. Since then, Kakashi opts to cover his left eye with his Konoha forehead protector.

5 Ciel Phantomhive

Black Butler

• Reason For Eyepatch – To hide his Faustian contract

One day, a young Ciel came home to his parents and his family dog all brutally murdered. In a frenzy and trying to escape, Ciel then found himself and his twin brother being kidnapped and sold off to the highest bidder. While their kidnappers initially treated the boys well, they eventually revealed their true colors and began their cult’s sacrificial ritual, offering the young boys to their king.

During the sacrifice, a mysterious demon named Sebastian appeared, offering Ciel a contract in order to grant his wish and take revenge on those who wronged him. Eventually agreeing, Ciel was then given a seal on his right eye as the more visible the seal is, the more power it holds. In order to not draw attention to it, Ciel then quickly covered it up with an eyepatch.

4 Kenpachi Zaraki

Bleach

• Reason For Eyepatch – To conceal his reiryoku

Kenpachi’s iconic eyepatch is actually not just for the aesthetics and actually conceals his reiryoku (spiritual power) while he has it equipped. It was created by the Shinigami Research and Development Institute just for the captain of the 11th Division in Gotei 13.

Kenpachi truly loves and cherishes the joy he gets from a good battle and a worthy opponent. In order to get the most out of every fight, Kenpachi must intentionally hold himself back from unleashing his full power; otherwise, he would defeat his opponents too quickly. Kenpachi only removes his special eyepatch for the best of the best of his enemies.

3 Asuka Shikinami Langley

Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance

• Reason For Eyepatch – Damaged her eye in an attack from Unit 01 (under artificial piloting control) when piloting Unit 03

In the Rebuild of the cult classic, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka is given a fairly different personality as even her name was overhauled, taking the original “Asuka Langley Sohryu” and rebranding her as “Asuka Shikinami Langley” instead.

While Asuka Sohryu does suffer an eye injury during a fight against mass-produced Evas from a Longinus Spear replica in The End Of Evangelion, it is Asuka Shikinami that is seen with an eyepatch instead. After being attacked by Unit 01 while inside Unit 03, in Evangelion: 3.0, Asuka is revealed to still have complete functioning of her eye and was now also infused with angel-sealing hex glyphs.

2 Denji

Chainsaw Man

• Reason For Eyepatch – Sold eye for money

At the beginning of the series, Denji was rather sickly and even had a few missing body parts, including his right eye. Denji began his story in immense debt and had no choice but to sell his body parts just to help ease the financial burden on his shoulders. However, this version of Denji only lasted for the first episode of the series as he quickly regained his missing body parts after being merged with his little pal, Pochita.

Honorable Mentions:Guts (Berserk)

• Reason For Eyepatch – Unknown

While Guts does lose the use of one of his eyes during the horrific events of the Eclipse, he doesn’t use an eyepatch as most characters do after receiving an eye-related injury and instead opts for simply keeping his bad eye closed.

However, most fans may not know that the prototype version of Guts in the early rendition of the Berserk manga actually did wear an eyepatch right from the beginning! Eyepatch or not, Guts still pulls off the cool, tough-guy anime/manga protagonist everyone knows and loves.

Chifuyu Matsuno (Tokyo Revengers)

• Reason For Eyepatch – Injured by Baji

Luckily, Chifuyu wasn’t permanently left with an eyepatch. First-division captain and best friend Baji Keisuke was forced to prove his loyalty to Valhalla after leaving Toman the only way he knew how: with his fists. Unfortunately, Chifuyu was on the receiving end of Baji’s flurry of punches. Baji beat Chifuyu so badly that the poor guy was left with bandages and an eye-covering for the next few days!

Of course, Chifuyu, being the loyal friend he was, trusted Baji and completely approved his decision to cross over to Valhalla for the sake of protecting all he held dear to him.

1 Ken Kaneki

Tokyo Ghoul

• Reason For Eyepatch – To cover his kakugan around humans, to hide his human side around other ghouls

Ken Kaneki is the half-ghoul protagonist in the Tokyo Ghoul series. After a date gone horribly wrong with a girl that turned out to be a bloodthirsty ghoul, Kaneki was left with life-threatening injuries that left doctors with no choice but to implant the organs of the ghoul into him, thus turning him into his half-ghoul state.

In the beginning, Kaneki wore a regular medical eyepatch in order to hide his kakugan eye to conceal his ghoul side from society. However, Kaneki eventually received his signature mask that covers most of his face, except for his left eye: his kakugan. Uta, the mask studio owner, explains that Kaneki’s mask allows him to see certain parts of the world that he normally cannot.