Kaomoji

[3][4] They often include Japanese typography in addition to ASCII characters,[2] and in contrast to Western-style emoticons, tend to emphasize the eyes, rather than the mouth.

[6] Whereas Western emoticons were first used by US computer scientists, kaomoji were most commonly used by young girls and fans of Japanese comics (manga).

The asterisks indicate the eyes; the central character, commonly an underscore, the mouth; and the parentheses, the outline of the face.

A quotation mark ", apostrophe ', or semicolon ; can be added to the emoticon to imply apprehension or embarrassment, in the same way that a sweat drop is used in manga and anime.

English-language anime forums adopted those Japanese-style emoticons that could be used with the standard ASCII characters available on Western keyboards.

The parentheses are sometimes dropped when used in the English language context, and the underscore of the mouth may be extended as an intensifier for the emoticon in question, e.g. ^_________^ for very happy.

The emoticon t(-_-t) uses the Eastern style, but incorporates a depiction of the Western "middle-finger flick-off" using a "t" as the arm, hand, and finger.

Using a lateral click letter for the nose such as in ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) is believed to originate from the Finnish image-based message board Ylilauta, and is called a "Lenny face".

[citation needed] In Brazil, sometimes combining characters (accents) are added to emoticons to represent eyebrows, as in ò_ó, ó_ò, õ_o, ù_u, o_Ô, or ( •̀ ᴗ •́ ).