A face drawn with the hiragana characters he no he no mo he ji (へのへのもへじ). Conveys an idea of anonymity, and may be worn as a mask.
In Real Life, Henohenomoheji are also sometimes drawn on the little dolls hung on windowsills to chase away the rain, known as Teru-Teru Bōzu.
Compare Faceless Masses.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Kodocha is one of the most classic examples; in order to test that the jumping cord wouldn't snap, a henohenomoheji dummy was used in order to test it out. It was hilarious to watch it bounce like a pinball.
- In Nagasarete Airantou, an eggplant with this face is often used as a dummy to draw girls away from Ikuto... It is a Gag Series.
- In Naruto, the character Kakashi Hatake's face is the subject of an entire episode (Episode 101: "Gotta See! Gotta Know! Kakashi-Sensei's True Face!"), in which his students try to remove his mask. Against one of them he uses a decoy (scarecrow) of himself, with the Henohenomoheji drawn on the face; which is appropriate enough, given that his name (Kakashi) means "scarecrow" in Japanese. Also, Kakashi is able to summon a small pack of eight dogs, all of which have the Henohenomoheji on their backs.
- A piece of promotional art
◊ for the series has Naruto drawing one of these on Sai's scroll.
- A piece of promotional art
- In One Piece, Igaram makes dummies with this type of face to impersonate Luffy, Zoro, and Nami... except instead of Henohenomoheji he uses Henohenounchi (unchi meaning poo). A reader wrote to the Question Corner to call out Oda on his Toilet Humor.
- A minor Digimon known as Nohemon is a scarecrow themed around and named after Henohenomoheji, with it constituting his face.
- In Haruhi Suzumiya, a brief scene in episode 11 showed Koizumi's fleet with a crew full of Henohenomoheji.
- In Ranma ½, the title character often wears the Henohenomoheji face.◊ Once, after eating something particularly foul; and again, when eating something even worse, the hiragana fell off his face and he picked it off the floor and put it back on at odd angles.
- He has also once doodled it on Happosai's face during his weakened phase.
- Mangaka Yuu Watase is often portrayed in a Henohenomoheji mask.
- In Mononoke, the Medicine Seller briefly wears a Henohenomoheji on his blank face during the Noppera-bo arc before restoring his own.
- In Samurai Champloo, the baseball catcher doll in episode 23 "Baseball Blues" has a Henohenomeheji on its face.
- In episode 3 of Hyakko, a slightly different henohenomoheji can be seen drawn on a cardboard box: it has no ji, a shi for its nose and another shi for its ear, which reads out "henohenoshiheshi". Later on in the same episode, a more classical version can be seen painted on a robot's face, with only the eyes and the nose (henohenomo) and a speaker for its mouth.
- In the ecchi manga Trans Venus, a doll replacing Sudou in school while he's being a girl has a Henohenomoheji for a face.
- YuYu Hakusho:
- Yusuke throws a rock at Sensui with a Henohenomoheji on it as distraction during their fight in Irima Cave.
- There's another point where Yukina is talking about the brother she's never met, who has a hiruiseki necklace like hers and is represented by a Henohenomoheji.
- Urusei Yatsura: Asuka and Tobimaro's father has this for his actual face.
- Used in the musical show Nerima Daikon Brothers: Three fourths of the episodes involve the three protagonists singing a plea for something from the Expy of the director; when one member of the group is MIA, they're replaced by a cardboard cutout with this face.
- During the author's notes segments in Hikaru no Go, the mangaka, Yumi Hotta, portrays herself as having one of these.
- In Case Closed OVA 10, Kaito's decoy had a henohenomoheji face.
- During the Gold/Silver/Crystal arc of Pokémon Adventures, Eusine used one for the face of his decoy during his battle against some Team Rocket grunts.
- In episode 192 of Sailor Moon, Tin Nyanko in human disguise is seen drawing this kind of face in her notebook out of boredom.
- Lupin III commonly leaves little face drawings on fake-Lupin dummies and dummies for the police and victims to find.
- On Soul Eater, after Dr. Stein hallucinates Maria jumping off his roof, he sees her with a henohenomoheji for a face.
- In Wagnaria!!, when Souta asks Mahiru what her father looks like, she draws one but with the character for father (父) on top as a forehead.
- In NEEDLESS, after Blade recovers from being impaled during the Simeon arc, he has this for a face because, as Cruz explains it, it's been so long since he's been in action the author forgot how to draw his face.
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Joseph Joestar leaves one on the face of a decoy dummy for Kars.
- In episode five of the anime adaptation of Golden Wind, Narancia Ghirgha draws one of these in the margin of a book, on the same page where he's written that 16 multiplied by 55 equals 28.
- In Tokyo Ghoul there is a character who uses the alias "Scarecrow," who has a mask that appears to be a sack with this face drawn on it.
- In one episode of Ninja Hattori, Hattori, Shinzō, and Shishimaru use dummies of themselves to scare Kemumaki into thinking there are living mummies in the museum. Hattori's dummy has the henohenomoheji face drawn on its head.
- Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: Sir Dawner, hero of the land, appears as one in the mind of the titular Princess (who he's engaged to!)
- Black Clover: Yami's face as a child is drawn like this, except the nose and mouth are replaced by "やみ"note .
Fan Works
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku tries to grab Mister Mxyzptlk in anger for turning Inko into a dog. He soon finds that Mxyzptlk had replaced himself with a dummy that had a henohenomoheji for a face.
- In Super Danganronpa Another 2, Iroha's face turns into a henohenomoheji during the fifth trial out of sheer panic at being accused of Teruya's murder.
Live-Action TV
- In Kamen Rider Drive, Gou goes undercover as a buyer to Arms Dealer-pair of Roidmudes. He pays them with fake bills that have their faces replaced with a Henohenomoheji.
- In an early episode of Dengeki Sentai Changeman, Sayaka and Mai, undercover at a girls' academy, ask one of the students if they can draw a picture of her (that's actually a ploy to attract the Monster of the Week). Sayaka makes a picture-perfect portrait of her. The best Mai manages to do is draw a Henohenomoheji with hair.
Video Games
- In Ōkami, characters are represented with a Henohenomoheji icon floating above their heads whenever they are too far to be seen.
- Since Blanca the cat in Animal Crossing is The Blank, she is depicted in the official art for the first game with one of these faces. (In later installments, to reflect the widened international scope of the series, she got a plain doodle-face instead.)
- In Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Scarecrows have these on their faces.
- In the MSX game Parodius, one of the bosses is based on this.
- In Chulip, the generic factory workers all have Henohenomohe faces.
- In Crusader of Centy, a puppet controlled by a boss has this for a face.
- In Terranigma, in Matis's final gallery, he features a henohenomoheji.
- Failing to succesfully defeat an enemy in Streetpass Mii Plaza's Ninja Launcher will have your character escape with a dummy character with this face, and will count as a loss.
- pop'n music has the character Nanashi (lit. "no name"), who is Nakaji WITH A HENOHENOMOHE MASK THAT HAS GLASSES OVER THE EYES!
- This trope appears briefly in, of all places, Elite Beat Agents, in the intro to the "I Was Born To Love You" level. Not only is this somewhat ironic in that its Japanese counterpart seemingly has none of these, it's even anachronistic, due to how the level is from 15th century Florence!
- The Phantom Thieves of Hearts in Persona 5 find one of these as the "treasure" of Madarame's Palace. If it really was the Treasure, it'd be more heavily guarded than a snare trap to catch the Thieves. The real Treasure is a more elaborate painting held by Shadow Madarame himself.
- WarioWare Gold has a mode called "Split Screen" where microgames are completed consecutively on alternating screens of the Nintendo 3DS. Failing a microgame in this mode will cause Kat or Ana (depending on what screen the failed microgame was on) to be replaced by a poorly drawn replica sporting a frowning henohenomoheji face.
