Bishie Sparkle

"Edward's skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface."

— Twilight (2005)

In anime, attractive men and women walk around in a cloud of sparkles. Maybe they're just so pretty that light, like members of the opposite sex (and occasionally the same sex), behaves strangely around them. Maybe Anime Land pheromones take the form of glowing, colorful diamonds of light. Nobody really knows.

Or maybe it's just the fact that Generic Cuteness makes it hard to set the really beautiful people apart from those who are supposed to be ordinary. Furthermore, this is usually shown when it's from the point of view of the person looking at said bishie, visually conveying their attraction.

It is highly likely that since traditionally and culturally in East-Asian countries (China and Japan) you can metaphorically say that charismatic people shine (Japanese 眩しい, "radiant"), the sparkles visually show the shine without blurring the characters themselves.

This trope has been used so often that some examples will even employ the Bishie Sparkle out of an intense commitment to irony, or humorously. In these cases, the effect might be accompanied by an Audible Gleam to accentuate their luminosity.

Most Western examples have been references to Japanese examples, but with the popularity of The Twilight Saga, that might be beginning to change.

The effect also applies to cute couples, including lesbian ones but especially gay ones.

A Sub-Trope of Everything's Better with Sparkles. Related to Gaussian Girl, Love Bubbles and Crush Filter. Often goes hand in hand with Something about a Rose.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In ½ Prince, Prince sparkled before fighting Hell's Murderers in the tournament. Prince often sparkles, especially when he's supposed to be upping a Prince Charming effect on most people. Other bishies in the story like Gui or even Wicked use the sparkles at times, too, but much less frequently. And Prince falls for them, too.
• Tokidoki from Amatsuki uses his sparkling beauty to fool the police into believing some sad story and therefore evading arrest. He also wears them when he's happy.
• Angel Beats!:
  • Otonashi pulls this off to mockingly imitate Hinata.
  • Also Takamatsu, whenever he takes off his shirt.
• Angel Crush: Michael Finch AKA Michael the Archangel has long golden locks of blond hair that sparkle. All the time. Even at night.
• In the eighth chapter of Asteroid in Love, animated in the third episode, Mai sees Mikage with these when they first met.
• Attack on Titan: In Episode 18, after Krista arrives with a few horses after Jean shoots a smoke round in the air in an attempt to call for help. She tells them she's glad they're all safe, and as sunlight beams down on her, she sparkles, causing Armin and Jean to wonder if she's a goddess, as well Reiner thinking that he wants to marry her.
  Armin: An angel!
  Jean: A goddess!
  Reiner: One day, my wife!
• Osaka in Azumanga Daioh gets a Bishie Sparkle during her first scene. Sakaki also gets this during Kaorin's daydreams. To excess.
• Keiichi Kanejou from B Gata H Kei has them permanently, as does his sister Kyoka.
• Baccano!'s anime adaptation gives a very brief flash of bishie sparkle to Ladd Russo, of all people. He's not really a Pretty Boy or anything; he's just being very hammy at the moment.
• Sebastian in Black Butler can generate sparkles when he is being particularly charming. This may or may not be a supernatural ability. Ciel Phantomhive can do it too, at will, when he is charming someone with his rarely seen smile.
• Train from Black Cat is constantly seen with these in a Gaussian Girl manner whenever Kyoko imagines or thinks about him.
• The Black Lagoon manga used this to comedic effect in a flashback to Boris' youth. Apparently he used to be a bishie.
• Bleach:
  • Yumichika sparkles whenever he gives that cute smile. Not only that, but when Hard-Drinking Party Girl Rangiku and Isane decide to insult the 11th division as a squad of filthy, loincloth wearing men, Yumichika simply cannot let that go unchallenged. His answer to such an odious accusation? Sparkles◊.
  • And despite not being Bishōnen Charlotte Cuuhlhourne constantly does this as well.
• In Brave10, Rokuro is accompanied by a wealth of sparkles in Hakobe's vision.
• A Certain Magical Index's Misaka Mikoto imagines Touma in an astonishingly honest moment in New Testament vol. 2.
• In D.Gray-Man, Allen is shown to be able to exude Bishie Sparkles to get what he wants, most noticeably in Chapter 162 where he manages to manipulate the robot Komurin into falling for him and doing what he asks.
• In DNA², the appropriately named Twinkle Junta who is the charming playboy personality of Junta Momonari, but not quite the Mega Playboy, practically sparkles permanently. He even uses his sparkles as a weapon, aptly called Twinkle Aura.
• Kazahaya of Drug & Drop pictures Kakei with sparkles in his head.
• Eyeshield 21:
  • Taki is seen sparkling and winking in almost all of his appearances in the manga.
  • Kisaragi. While definitely Bishounen, he's not the character type this is normally.
• Played for laughs in Fairy Tail. They mainly pop up in Juvia's over the top fantasies about Gray. When they show up outside of her imagination they accompany Ichiya, a man with typical bishounen hair but a very hideous face and short stature who doesn't seem to realize that he's the single least attractive character in the series.
• The main male cast from Free! does this when swimming, even on the official poster. This is justified since the sparkles are mostly from pool water.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Happens a lot, but most notably during Tohru's daydream of "if Yuki and Kyo got along".
  • Not to mention whenever Ayame appears. He practically exists for this trope.
  • Very late in the manga, the sparkle is also used as a Vomit Discretion Shot after Kyo's stomach gets the better of him. Well, either that, or Sohmas are so beautiful that even their vomit is pretty. Or maybe that's just where bishie sparkle comes from.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, THE ART OF SPARKLING BEAUTY HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN IN THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS! And it really has, although Major Armstrong is more 'manly' than pretty. (Image.◊)
  • It's not just Major Alex Louis Armstrong who has this trait, but THE ENTIRE ARMSTRONG FAMILY THROUGH THE GENERATIONS.
    • Not just the entire family: the sparkle is possessed by a flower woman whose family has SERVED THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS. And one of her hairs has the Armstrong curl, too.
  • Sig Curtis also develops a sparkle when he's doing manly things with Armstrong. Curiously enough, his sparkle isn't pink, but brown-ish.
  • May's Inner-Mind Theatre version of Edward and later Alphonse have this.
  • Roy Mustang gets some sparkles in the 13th episode of the 2003 anime adaptation during his duel with Edward.
    • As does Envy in the Chibi Wrap Party OVA, to hilarious effect.
    • Lampshaded by Breda when he's impersonating Armstrong to prank his colleagues: He's got small pink paper cutouts that look like Armstrong's sparkle, suspended on wires.
    • Armstrong also sculpted a statue of himself in the movie from the 2003 anime series; it had a small four-pointed piece of stone for a sparkle suspended by a strip of metal coming from the body.
    • Fullmetal Fantasy, the Fan Film produced by the English vocal cast, has Real Life Armstrong complete with sparkles.
• Fushigi Yuugi has a sparkly set of bishies.
• Game×Rush has Memori, who sparkles as part of his job: He's a bodyguard, and the Bishie Awesome is how he gets the clients. Typically, however, Memori is less Sparkle and more Monologue.
• Gravion brings us Klein Sandman, who first gets his during a I Always Wanted to Say That moment. Being absurdly Bishōnen already, this may be overkill.
• Hiro and Shuichi got a brief moment of this, including a pink background and plenty of Ho Yay in episode one of Gravitation.
• Gundam:
  • Mirai Kamiki from Gundam Build Fighters Try have this effect almost whenever she enters a scene (by episode 2, she did this twice), spreading sparkles like GN Particles.
  • Possibly the strangest, most incredibly out-of-place use of this trope EVER was in one of the later episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, in which Quatre, the already ambiguously-gay character, crouches over a wounded Heero and extends his hand, from which shines a sudden, brief, and totally unexpected shower of gold sparkles. Like, seriously. Totally came outta left field. It is implied that the gold sparkles are a manifestation of Quatre using his not-quite-explained-but-somewhat-implied psychic powers on Heero. He gathers the sparkles from across Heero's body and brings them to his chest, remarking that he agreed that the Earth had been kind to both of them, and so they should go back.
• Felten of Hana to Akuma seems capable of invoking these at will.
• In Haruhi-chan, when Kyon and Koizumi dress up as hosts.
• Apparently, the main purpose of the two OAV episodes for Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou is to provide fans with a shot of all of the eight main guys sporting bishie sparkles. Which isn't surprising at all.
• Repeatedly used in Hayate the Combat Butler, mostly for comedic effect - Hayate can even consciously generate Bishie Sparkle, complete with a Dramatic Wind and a Love Bubbles backdrop, when he needs to look really charming.
• Every character in Hetalia: Axis Powers gets this at some point, but lately Estonia seems to be constantly sparkling. Some have started to call him Sparklestonia because of this. It even seems to spread to those around him in Chibi sketches.
• It is essentially impossible for Yoh from High School Debut to appear in a single panel without sparkling.
• When Keiichi became (even more) Bishōnen, he sparkled, in the Higurashi: When They Cry CD Drama, which came out a while before the anime or even sound novel remakes. He also does this a few times in anime itself.
• Hoshin Engi: Choukoumei is surounded by sparkles everytime he moves, poses, or says something dramatic, which mean very often.
• In Hunter × Hunter, Pariston is occasionally seen with those sparkles. While he has an undeniable bishounen look, the sparkles are used for comedic effect, only appearing when he's feeling particularly trollish or manipulative.
• Hyakunichikan!!: Kanami's Crush Filter makes her see Shuuto with these.
• Chapter 77 of Inside Mari features a flashback from Mari's point of view just before Isao became involved in events. We see Mari watching Isao, who is surrounded by sparkles throughout. This is in stark contrast to both the fact that she was watching Isao as he did things like masturbate and in relation to nearly everyone else in this sequence looking like creatures out of Attack on Titan.
• In Inu × Boku SS, Soushi Miketsukami sparkles every time he's talking about how much he adores Ririchiyo.
• Giorno from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is so Bishōnen that both he and his Stand are quite sparkly. He gets it from his father, who was a sparkly vampire in Part 3 before Twilight made it cool.
• Satoru Gojo of Jujutsu Kaisen gives this to a squeeing chapel of middle school girls.
• K, with its Cast Full of Pretty Boys, does some of this.
  • Kuroh, when he goes into The Knights Who Say "Squee!" mode over his late master's poetry.
  • In the first episode of season 2, the Blue King, Reisi Munakata, dissolves bullets that are being shot at him into sparkles.
  • In the manga K: Memory of Red, Rikio Kamamoto during the summer has sparkles quite often.
• Played for Laughs in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War during an Affectionate Parody of Shoujo manga, which resulted in panels that were overflowing with sparkles and Love Bubbles.
• Used by Ian, the movie star who temporarily lures Layla away from the stage in Kaleido Star. Layla does it quite a bit, as well, in Episode 13.
• Hendrick K. Strawberryfield in Kamen no Maid Guy projects sparkles when he removes his glasses. Which is quite often. He also hypnotizes women with them.
• Ookininushi from Kamisama Kiss. Every time he shows up it looks like a disco ball just exploded.
• Yuuichi of Kanon purposely unleashes a Bishie Sparkle at one point to see how it feels to be a bishie, and he decides it just isn't his thing. Ironically, many would consider him to be a bishonen, just not excessively so.
• As does Kaze to Ki no Uta. This seems to have been standard practice in Shoujo manga at the time.
• Kill la Kill has Aikuro Mikisugi, Ryuko's homeroom teacher and Sexy Mentor, whenever he takes off his glasses and/or the rest of his clothing. This may or may not be a plot point. They even serve as a Scenery Censor.
• In Kyo Kara Maoh!, Wolfram's sparkles can cure and heal the sick and dying. Gunter tends to get sparkles a lot.
• Kyousuke from Little Busters! gets this, most obviously in Refrain episode 2 when he goes on and on about LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!! Sometimes, it's 'justified' by the sparkles being his tears (of joy or awe or the like) but sparkling tears are pretty Bishounen-esque on their own...
• Maity-Sensei from Lovely★Complex has a truly awesome Bishie Sparkle that he seems to be able to control (He often wraps it around his fingers and writes in the air with it when he is proud of himself) One time he even claims that he can use magic, then using the sparkle to demonstrate this.
• Seen in Lucky Star several times, including one point in which Konata imagines Kagami as Tsukasa.
• Lupin III, does this rarely, but when it happens, it's always to Goemon.
  • In the what is probably one of the earliest uses of the trope, during the second series Goemon gets sparkles (and wings!) when he cuts a missle in half after being mistaken for an angel by a blind child.
  • Lupin III: Travels of Marco Polo – Another Page: When Goemon enters the ship to rescue Hiromi. Then, promptly Discussed:
    Fujiko: [confused] What’s with all these sparkles?
    Lupin: [as the ship crashes] I think those are sparks...
• Michel Blanc and Alto Saotome of Macross Frontier both got them in the TV broadcast edit of Episode 1. Mikhail can even do it on command when flirting.
• The Student Council President and the Vice-President from Maria†Holic. They sparkle so much that you could see the effects from a screen away.
• Pictured is Mikoshiba from Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun; amusingly enough, he handles the screen tones and other Manga Effects for Nozaki's manga, including the Bishie Sparkles. His classmate Kashima also frequently gets this treatment, despite being a girl.
• In Moriarty the Patriot, to emphasize the scenes in which the Moriarty family is hosting lots of women at their estate and Sherlock and John are using their charms to ensnare women, both scenes come with loads of sparkles to remind the audience that they're all being seen in a very attractive light.
• In Nanbaka, they're exaggerated to the point where the absence of this trope is rarer. This happens because they gratuitously appear almost everywhere, and no gender - not even the supporting character crossdresser - is immune to them. Astonishingly, it's only really the anime that gets treated like this; the manga eases up on the sparkles.
• Natsume's Book of Friends:
  • Parodied with actor and part time exterminator Natori - who seems to accumulate fangirls wherever he goes.
  • Natsume starts unconsciously emanating Bishie Sparkle◊ when a female Youkai possesses him in the first season. It makes his male friends very uncomfortable.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Negi Springfield sparkles whenever he accidentally acts cool and charming. This goes double when he's in his magically-aged-up form.
  • He also sparkles in some of Nodoka's doodles, as seen in her diary.
  • Albiero Imma or rather Colonel Sanders as he prefers to call himself does this a lot when his hood is down. Especially when talking to Evangeline.
• Neighborhood Story: Seiji Kisaragi sparkles so much, that he's instantly nicknamed "Sparkling Foreigner" when he appears for the first time.
• Although it happens to anyone hearing/performing some very good music in Nodame Cantabile, the trophy goes to Prof. Auclair, who seems to exhale this all the time in the manga.
• One Piece:
  • In Alabasta, Sanji gets these while proclaiming himself to be Nami and Vivi's Prince Charming. In this case, the "sparkles" are actually smoke from his cigarette.
  • Luffy does not have Bishie Sparkles... unless the person looking at him is Boa Hancock, in which case you get this trope.
  • In the Dressrosa arc, Fanboy Bartolomeo also sees Luffy with the sparkles.
• Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling For Me uses these on occasion, most notably Takako and Sion. Mariya once gets rainbows as well.
• Parodied, like most other elements of Shōjo, in Ouran High School Host Club. Tamaki is by far the worst offender of this trope. Even Haruhi does it when interacting with the girls that come to see her at the club, though she's not doing it intentionally, much to Tamaki's annoyance/pride. To be honest, there's so much sparkle in the story that you'd think the entire cast was related to Edward Cullen in some way.
• Sharon from PandoraHearts sometimes sparkles so intensely that the sparkles fly off and hit the other characters (usually Break).
• In the Planetes manga, when The Baron lets down his hair (revealing that he was Bishonen All Along) he gets the Bishie Sparkle.
• Pokémon:
  • There are quite a few episodes of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl in which Brock will go into complete Bishonen mode, complete with sparkles and a drastically different look.
  • Cilan and his brothers. To quote Pokémon Adventures:
    Cress: Our teamwork sparkles!
    Cilan: We, too, are three bright shining stars.
  • In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon anime spin off for Explorers of Time and Darkness, this is basically what Gabite does after hitting Sunflora with Attract.
  • Minccino's Attract has a similar effect on Snivy.
  • Serena sees Ash surrounded with sparkles just as the two of them are about to dance. The sparkles disappear when the dance ends just before the two of them could actually pair up.
  • James gets sparkles when he asks Mareanie to join him. The joke is that, whenever it poisons James, his purple face matches his blue hair to make him look like another Mareanie. So the Mareanie had fallen in love with him.
• The Rose of Versailles uses this frequently, usually with flowers nearby or as a background.
• In the anime adaptation of Run with the Wind, when Prince is being introduced to Kakeru, sparkles fly everywhere while he flicks his hair to emphasise his pretty boy status.
• Hilariously spoofed in Saa Koi ni Ochitamae, a Boys Love manga, where when the protagonist starts sparkling his brothers see it, and have some funny reactions.
• In Act 1 of Sailor Moon Crystal, newly-smitten Sailor Moon sees these (with Audible Gleam) and a preponderance of Love Bubbles framing Tuxedo Mask, as he introduces himself while making his exit.
• Notably absent from the otherwise bishie-laden Saint Seiya...until they put out this action figure◊, which combined Bishie Sparkle with Lens Flare Censor to hilarious effect.
• In the first Beach Episode of Sgt. Frog, Momoka tries to confess her love to Fuyuki, who gets a bishie sparkle that grows brighter and brighter the more nervous Momoka gets.
• Airi twinkles in Shinigami-sama to 4-nin no Kanojo when she acts cute, but since she's the shinigami who's making Kaoru's life miserable, the sparkles bounce off him.
• Some characters from Shugo Chara!, most notably Tadase, and sometimes Amu. Kukai even refered to it as "sparkly attack".
• Skip Beat! actually subverts and plays with this when it comes to Ren Tsuruga. He has a dashing gentleman smile that causes him to use the bishie sparkles, but Kyoko has learned that it's how he looks when he's angry at someone. The more he sparkles, the angrier he actually is. When he portrays a genuine smile, he tends to go for the Love Bubbles.
• Semi-averted in Slayers, where Zelgadis tends to shimmer under the scarves, especially in his first two or three appearances — but it's because he's made of shiny stone. But unaverted when he gets over some of his spazz, and the shimmer starts to combine with his graceful hand gestures and his personal bishie breeze.
• Prince, Dandy's race rival from episode 7 of Space☆Dandy, has a perpetually sparkly glow around his face. His sparkles briefly fade away when Dandy starts beating him, and they come back once Dandy actually wins.
• Erica Hartmann did this in Strike Witches as part of a Show Some Leg to attract the attention of a passing truck. Even with all the sparkles, it still failed.
• In Tamagotchi, Himespetchi has a Crush Filter aimed at Mametchi. Whenever she sees Mametchi, he has taller arms and legs, a more handsome-looking face, Love Bubbles surrounding him, and a bunch of sparkles that also seem to perpetually follow him around.
• Played for Laughs in Tiger & Bunny, when Nathan teaches Keith how to generate this effect to impress a girl the latter likes.
• Tono to Issho: Naoe Kanetsugu is followed everywhere by a cloud of purple sparkles.
• Vash the Stampede from Trigun gets this a few times in the anime.
• Ichijo in Vampire Knight Bishie Sparkles when he's happy. It's more than a little depressing...
• The Wallflower is all about the Bishie Sparkle! The four main male characters do it all the time. Sunako (the horror-obsessed, darkness-loving ghost-resembling Sadako-Samara-esque-girl) calls them "creatures of the light" and avoids them at all costs or gets a Nosebleed. The four boys are incredibly attractive to men and women alike, and boy, do they know it. They sparkle all the time, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes because they can purposefully turn on the charm. Noi, a really popular girl and Takenaga's girlfriend, also sparkles a lot, because she's so pretty and perfect.
• Yatterman came out in 1978 but already lampshaded and spoofed this, for example when the Terrible Trio started mocking the heroes for their shiny eyes and teeth, or when the Yattermen started irradiating sparkles from random parts of their bodies.

Asian Animation

• In episode 27 of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Happy, Happy, Bang! Bang!, Wilie gives his cousin Angelalily his scarf to replace her old one that he ruined by accident and asks her if they can be friends. As he says this, Angelalily, who has a crush on him despite being his cousin, views him through a Crush Filter that comes complete with sparkles surrounding him.
• Pleasant Goat Fun Class: Travel Around the World episode 12 features a bishonen rooster man who sparkles in multiple scenes.

Comic Books

• Empowered: Urushihara Rokuro, from Volume 7's "Deflowered and Dispassionate", is introduced this way.
• Relative Heroes: Allure is always surrounded by small multicolored sparkles as a side effect of the "charm" Eryx placed on her when he made a deal with her mother in exchange for Allure's hand in marriage.

Comic Strips

• In printed media, the title character of the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter is always drawn with a very subdued version of this effect, even when not in the foreground. It manifests as between one and four six-pointed stars, and is subdued since the stars appear on the character's face and hair rather than in the air around her.

Fan Works

• in The Great Alicorn Hunt, Fluttershy has a little brother by the name of Breezy Shy... whose nickname is Bishi. The Cutie Mark Crusaders get one look at his bishi-sparkly self and are immediately hooked.

Films — Animation

• Turning Red: Carter, a Pretty Boy schoolmate, appears surrounded by these when Mei checks him out.

Films — Live-Action

• Another rare example is Selena Gomez's character Zoe in The Dead Don't Die. She and her friends were just about to drive off from the gas station, and sparkles shone as she introduced herself to Bobby Wiggins, the attendant.
• Jareth from Labyrinth is a rare live-action example. The scene in which he first appears in Sarah's bedroom is a good example, where he is surrounded by sparkles. He also wears sparkly eye makeup.

Literature

• Spoofed in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff: glittery auras are also apparently an angel trait, but First-Person Smartass Biff is less than impressed by it
  Biff: And this golden stuff around you, this light, what is this?
  Raziel: The glory of the Lord.
  Biff: You're sure it's not stupidity leaking out of you?
• The vampires in The Twilight Saga sparkle in direct sunlight, which they avoid by either being nocturnal or living in places with near-constant rainfall (such as Forks, WA). Prettiness is apparently a vampire trait. This has been the subject of much Squee-ing from the Fandom and much ridicule from the Hatedom. Possibly justified, since Twilight vampires' skin is like a diamond, both in toughness and in appearance.
  • With the announcement of a Twilight manhwa, the series may reach an unprecedented level of sparkle.

Live-Action TV

• Delicious Gakuin does this with Rin and almost everything he touches. Lampshaded for comic effect as he can literally switch it on and off whenever he likes.
• Chi Soo from Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is covered in sparkles when he's introduced on the aeroplane.
• Played with on Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Ned sees Bishie Sparkle three times around Moze and wonders if that means he likes her. The first two turn out to be someone working with a spotlight, but it's implied the third time was the real thing.
• Happens to pretty much every one of J.D.'s girlfriends on Scrubs though there's also usually a fan blowing in her hair and a music riff too. In one of the commentaries they joke that these are moments made for the commercial, cause sex sells.
• In Warehouse 13, the former football player has aged well, contrary to Myka's expectations, and is surrounded by Bishie Sparkle when she sees him for the first time.

Podcasts

• An audio-variant pops up in The Fallen Gods when Josh mimics the noise, using it to describe how tough his character Flint's pecs are.

Tabletop Games

• In the Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer campaign setting there are the reigar, an Inhumanly Beautiful Race that taught elves everything they know about art and aesthetics! They are constantly surrounded by a sparkly magical aura that provides protection in addition to adding to their already extraordinary appearance.
• The Pretty Marines, a homebrew Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine chapter created by 4chan, have this as a natural trait due to a special gland.

Video Games

• In Blazblue this came from the absolutely most unlikely source EVUHR, namely Arakune in his "Help me, Proffesor Kokonoe" segment. The good Professor Kokonoe herself proceeded with commenting that he was actually kind of cute.
• In Densetsu no Stafy 4, Prince Coral, a Long-Haired Pretty Boy, has a bishie sparkle when you first meet him.
• Being the resident uber-Bishōnen, Disgaea 3's Master Big Star uses the bishie sparkle on a near-constant basis. He even throws in a rose or two for added effect.
• In Fairy Fencer F, the main protagonist Fang tends to get these in cutscenes whenever he talks up his supposedly heroic qualities, while Tiara gets them when she is turned on by Fang's insults.
• Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade use this effect to indicate when the main character has met a Love Interest.
• Handsome Lech incarnate Olivier Lenheim does this from time to time in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, complete with a dramatic Hair Flip. Considering Olivier's personality and general silliness, this isn't surprising in the slightest.
• Link gets some in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, after a scene involving a Friendship-speech. Don't be surprised: This is the same game that gave him Blush Stickers after all.
• In the MMO The Lord of the Rings Online when a character receives "inspiration" (a buff which turns the character into an absolute Badass so he can solo a quest designed for a group), he's surrounded by a rather heavenly-looking glow and little sparkles emanate from him.
• Prince Peasley needs only flip his hair to create a blinding blast of Bishie Sparkle in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. He does this a lot, sometimes several times in the same scene. The remake adds Love Bubbles for good measure.
• Raiden occasionally generates this in the pre-Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots joke trailers and the Snake Eraser bonus movie. At one point he and Snake race for the "Main Character" chair, Snake trailing dramatic red and white flower petals, and Raiden trailing white and pink sparkles.
  • Big Boss gets a helping of this, too, after telling Ocelot he's 'pretty good'. Ocelot, losing consciousness, perceives Big Boss as looking soft focus and sparkly.
• No More Heroes does this in Harvey Moseiwitschii Volodarksii's boss fight to a comedic extent, with sparkles constantly radiating off him. However, his 'bishonen' appearance is rather damaged when he gets cut in half.
• Persona:
  • Human Teddie of Persona 4 has sparkles come out of him anytime he attempts to exploit his attractiveness to get others to do things for him, like give him free food or go on a date.
  • Persona 5: When you gain points for your charm stat, three small diamond sparkles form next to the main character's eyes.
• In Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary, Maguro can fire "beauty beams" with his strong eyes, making anyone instantly fall in love. Even boys. Too bad we don't get to see them.
• In Sakura Wars (2019), whenever a Flower Division member gets really close to Seijuro Kamiyama in the communication mode sequences, they are often surrounded by glowing sparkles.
• Kenshin from Sengoku Basara is always surrounded by sparkles and rose petals. Whether or not Kasuga is just imagining it is debatable.
• The Sims:
  • In The Sims 2, an option is to scan the room looking for people your Sim is attracted to. This is indicated by certain people being surrounded by a glowing light, complete with sparkles.
  • In The Sims 3, you can get a lifetime happiness reward called "Eye Candy", which surrounds your sim in red sparkles and gives a moodlet to other sims nearby.
  • The Sims 3 Supernatural gives us Vampire Sunscreen.
• In Rainbow Mika's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3, Zangief receives the Bishie Sparkle treatment.

Visual Novels

• Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club has Jared aka ProJared. To emphasis the fact that he's the most attrective person in the school.
• Prince Gaston of The Confines of the Crown sparkles when he either grins or cries dramatically. It's mostly for comedic effect - he's not meant to be that attractive to the viewer, just completely over-the-top.
• Kareha in SHUFFLE! sparkles whenever she fangirls over something, usually related to love.
• Yo-Jin-Bo has a couple of scenes in which the very pretty men of the game sparkle.

Web Animation

• Babushka: the Movie is an animatic depiction of a well-known round of Among Us, with the streamers who were playing the game depicted as the crew of the ship. Corpse Husband, BrookeAB, and Sykkuno all get the sparkle effect at various times, usually when their animated counterparts are being particularly cute. That said, Sykkuno gets the most sparkle moments, but the usage is kind of ironic since it happens either just before or just after he's murdering his friends as an impostor.
• Hitoshi from Neko Sugar Girls tends to sparkle. It makes sense as he is a Stealth Parody of Bishōnen characters.

Webcomics

• Taken out of context, the last panel of this Achewood. (Or "majesty lines", with apologies to the commenters.)
• In Ashface's Daughter, prince Joakim's first meeting with the elven enchantress Demir has him see her surrounded with these.
• Played with in Cafe Anime, with Jules (in the "How to Bishi" non-continuity series) spraying a jar of "Bishi Glitter" on Lexx. Which, later in the same series, causes him to blind onlookers when exposed to direct sunlight.
• Used amusingly in Cirque Royale here as an Art Shift in "A-Okay", when Flower Princess Rosalind sees Charlie after their performance in the Flower Kingdom. She doesn't know yet he's acearo—and neither does he, which is the drive of the story.
• Used deliberately in this strip from webcomic Darian's Friends to illustrate one character's false idealized impression of another.
• Dear Children: When Gabe first gets a good close-up look at Chelle, he sees this effect. Justified because Gabe is a big anime fan, who often sees real life as if it were anime or manga.
• El Goonish Shive used this several times now, and hung a lampshade on it by having one of the characters ask "Since when can you glow?". Apparently, Tedd didn't even realise he was doing it.
  • Of course, what with this being Shive and all, it may end up being latent magic abilities or something else significant given his love of Chekhov's Gun.
• Lampshaded in this strip of Fey Winds.
• Forestdale: At his friend Izabell's insistence, Jake tries to pull a scary face from his wolf roots. Unfortunately he ends up making himself look even more adorable, complete with sparkles to sell the look.
• Freefall: "Just like Vlad the Impaler. He was also a monster."
• Maxim of Girl Genius, in the second panel here.
• In The Glass Scientists, Jekyll is always accompanied by clouds of golden sparkles, to the extent that when he's out of frame, even his speech balloons exhibit it.
• In Grey is... Black has them whenever he imitates White because in his mind White always has them
• Charvatres from Handsome Fungus has an interesting variation on this, he has hearts floating around wherever he goes. Notice in the third panel, he's not happy and the hearts are still there.
• While there are many pretty unicorns in Hooves of Death, Commander Sprinkles is the only one with constant sparkles radiating off his luxurious and voluminous mane, and he's also the unicorn with the most scars from the war against the zombies. Sergeant Glitter has a crush on the Commander, but he continues to sparkle even when she's not the one viewing him.
• The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: When Lari the Ninja is unmasked, Molly exclaims, "Eee! You're a bishonen! You even sparkle!" And it's true. In later appearances, Lari is typically surrounded by a cloud of the stuff.
• Racer of Keychain of Creation gets these when he transforms into a horse. Given that he's a Lunar Exalt, its not impossible (nor would it be out of character) for him to actually be sparkling with a custom charm or knack.
• When Knights of Buena Vista covers Frozen, and Anna falls for Hans, Mary says that Anna sees sparkles around Hans's face.
• In a The Last Days of FOXHOUND flashback, Ocelot sees Big Boss with bishie sparkles, which makes so much sense if you've seen him in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Liquid is appropriately traumatised when it turns out that there's no-one in FOX-HOUND who doesn't have a crush on his dad.
• Ménage à 3 borrows a few manga tropes, especially perhaps when some of the geekier manga-loving characters are around. This one is used with tongue somewhat in cheek in places like this and this.
• During Dwayne's introduction in Moon Crest 24, he shows off his self-proclaimed bishonen eyes by using this technique.
• Okashina Okashi, of course. There's an entire restaurant of sparkly bishounen wearing nothing but towels, the appropriately-named Beauty Man Garden.
• Dexter in this page of Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, although it's never explained and no one reacts to it.
• Highschool womaniser, Hiroshi Aizaku, of Red String displays it here. The girls flock to him till they notice the nearby Eiji Hayashihara, who they say has cleaned up nicely, who isn't sparkling likely because he isn't turning on the charm like Hiroshi is.
• Iceland from Scandinavia and the World sparkles. Lampshaded when he dresses up as a sparkly vampire for Halloween.
• Sinfest features these whenever the angels give people "glitter points". Though they do appear to have some actual uses. Also a non-glitter-point related example. One more example, in a in-universe painting
• Sister Claire: Oscar walks around constantly surrounded by a cloud of sparkles, which she claims are at least partially due to an incident involving glitter. They also run in the family, as her half-sisters Rosie and Marie sometimes exhibit them too.
• In Stand Still, Stay Silent, Emil's have somehow made it to his passport photo (or at least some kind of official paper with his photo on it).
• Parodied in this strip from the Stick-Figure Comic Stickman and Cube, where the cartoonist supposedly draws the two characters Bishōnen.
• Idol singer Yura Ha in Tower of God has star-shaped sparkles appear in the air around her. It later turns out to be a feature of the rare race she belongs to, however, not because she's pretty and famous.
• Satoru sees a sparkling pink glow around Chihiro when he sees her in this page of Toki No Tanaka.
• Welcome to the pharmacy!: How Matt is introduced, with the elderly Mrs. Ping thinking him so dashing that he must be descended from some chinese aristocrat.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius uses this trope more then once. First time is a pretty hilarious moment when Cindy sees Jimmy in a tux, she gets hearts in her eyes, the camera zooms in on him making a pose with sparkles surrounding him (plus some appropriate music) , and she dreamily stares at him as he walks in the church ("Hunk muffin..."). The second time is reversed, when Jimmy sees Cindy in her space suit, she has sparkles floating around her.
• Duchess, the female lead of The Aristocats, sparkles during one scene, in a close up of her face and eyes. It's almost surreal to see the Bishie Sparkle applied in a Disney film.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang has seen them on Katara and Meng has seen them on Aang (who happened to be slouching with a vacant expression at the time, making him as un-bishounen as possible). Not to mention one guy saw them on Ty Lee in "The Beach".
  • Parodied In the The Legend of Korra episode "Welcome to Republic City", where there are "bushie" sparkles on the resident bush of a park-dwelling Hobo.
    Hobo: Took me a while to procure a bush that beauteous. *bush sparkles*
• Mike Morningstar of Ben 10: Alien Force sparkles when he flies and is specifically commented on by Kevin. Of course, he's a Plumber's kid, so it could easily just be alien powers...
• Used on both Sam and Paulina within the same dance night on Danny Phantom.
• In Dexter's Laboratory, when Mandark first sees Dee Dee, he sees her passing by in slo-mo, a trail of sparkles in her wake. He grasps at them in a zonked-out state of bliss.
• On Fred's Head these are used whenever anyone sees something or someone they like. It even goes as far as to whenever an animal sees something they like. As you can imagine, this happens just about every episode.
• Kaeloo: In some episodes, Pretty sees her (unrequited) crush Mr. Cat in a cloud of sparkles when she looks at him.
• On PBS's Maya & Miguel, one episode has Esperanza, who has a crush on Miguel, see said boy with these.
• My Little Pony Friendshipis Magic
  • Rarity often gets sparkles whenever she fantasizes and/or obsesses over things.
  • Rarity's view of Prince Blueblood both when she fantasises about him and when she first meets him is emphasized with effects including sparks. Of course, he doesn't live up to the expectations.
  • Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have sparks in their unearthly manes and, for Luna, appearing around her shoes and collar.
• In one of the animated The Lord of the Rings movies, Elves had a Bishie Sparkle and halo around their heads.
• Private, one of the Badass Adorable title group in The Penguins of Madagascar, once learned to reach 132% Cuteness which caused people to pass out upon seeing it. When he activated it, it spontaneously generated glitter and rainbows.
• Lampshaded in Phineas and Ferb when they make a short film starring Candace as a princess. "Cue the magical girly dust!"
  • Vanessa gets a Bishie Sparkle too, when Ferb sees her the first and the second time, although it was used more to indicate his Precocious Crush on her rather than her beauty.
  • Jeremy Johnson, the subject of Candace's crush, occasionally gets this.
• Surfer Dude Jack Kahuna Laguna in the Spongebob Squarepants episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One". He's voiced by Johnny Depp.

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