Which Manga Characters Mention This Bird Has Flown As A Metaphor?

I like thinking about how different creators use the bird-as-escape image, and when someone in a manga says something like ‘the bird’s flown,’ it often reads as a quiet, fatalistic observation rather than loud drama.

Take Itachi from 'Naruto' again: he never needs a long speech to make the point. The crows around him, the way they dissolve into the air when he leaves — it communicates loss and secrecy. Contrast that with how 'One Piece' sometimes treats seabirds as signs: a character watching the sky and noting a gull’s flight can mean hope, distance, or that someone has already left port and can’t be chased. That’s a softer usage, less about betrayal and more about the reality of movement on the ocean.

Then there’s the darker, cinematic usage — characters in 'Berserk' or in psychological thrillers who use bird flight to mark finality. It’s compact, visual, and emotionally flexible: a bird flying can be freedom for one character, doom for another. I enjoy noticing which tone a manga chooses; it tells you a lot about the storyteller’s mood without spelling everything out, and that subtlety is why I keep reading these scenes over and over.

Stumbling across the phrase 'this bird has flown' in a manga always gives me a tiny, delicious chill — it’s one of those translator-crafted metaphors that instantly frames a scene: someone has slipped away, a plan has failed, or a target has escaped. It's not tied to a single iconic character in the way a catchphrase like 'I am gonna be the Pirate King!' belongs to one protagonist. Instead, it’s the kind of line that pops up across genres and translators whenever a creator wants a concise, almost poetic way to say ‘they’re gone’ without spelling it out. In my reading, I’ve seen it delivered by grizzled detectives announcing a botched stakeout, by stoic assassins realizing their mark has eluded them, and by crime bosses watching a valuable asset vanish — all the archetypes that benefit from a little metaphorical flourish in English.

Where it shows up most frequently is in scenes heavy with tension: the end of a stakeout, a botched rescue, or the moment a plan folds and everyone in the room has to face that the impossible just happened. Translators often reach for the bird metaphor because Japanese has compact expressions that imply escape or departure, and English readers get that cinematic image straight away. So, while there isn’t a canonically famous manga character who owns the line, you’ll recognize it in the mouths of characters who occupy similar narrative space — veteran cops, senior intelligence officers, hardened mercenaries, exiled nobles, or underworld lieutenants. In other words, it’s more of a functional trope than a signature one.

The tone of the line can change depending on who says it. When a weary commander says 'this bird has flown,' it carries resignation: the cost of the failure is being tallied in silence. When a smug villain drops it, there’s triumph — the escape is proof that their network worked. When a young protagonist uses it (and that’s rarer, but it happens), it reads like poetic anger: they’re grieving a loss but framing it with a sharp, bitter image. I adore seeing the same metaphor used in different tonal keys because it highlights how much weight a translator’s choice can add. Some fans prefer literal translations; others like having the idiom wrapped in evocative English. Both approaches can be right because the line’s power comes from context and delivery.

So if you’re hunting for examples, look for it in scenes where someone succinctly reports an unexpected departure: stakeouts, breakouts, failed assassinations, and the quiet aftermath of betrayal. It’s the kind of line that feels cinematic, and that’s why it keeps turning up — not because a single manga character coined it, but because the phrase nails a universal moment. Personally, I love spotting it because it signals a shift in the story’s momentum and usually means things are about to get messy in a deliciously dramatic way.

Every so often I notice that manga will use a bird-flying metaphor the way a poet uses a single line to change the whole mood — it stands in for escape, betrayal, freedom, or the moment someone is irretrievably gone. I don’t recall a huge list of characters who literally say the exact phrase 'this bird has flown,' but plenty of big-name manga figures lean on the same image to mean someone slipped through their fingers.

Griffith in 'Berserk' is probably the most obvious: his whole motif is avian. You get hawk/falcon imagery everywhere around him, and the idea of rising, taking flight, and abandoning the nest is how his actions are framed. It’s used as both a promise and a warning — when the bird flies, things change for everyone left behind. Itachi from 'Naruto' is another case where birds (crows) carry meaning rather than being a literal bird-report; his appearances and disappearances are framed like crows scattering, an elegant shorthand for vanishing, deception, and a choice that isolates him.

Beyond those big examples, I’d point to characters who use bird imagery to mark a turning point: an older captain who watches a gull and realizes someone’s escaped, or a betrayer whose departure is described as ‘the bird taking wing.’ Even if the exact sentence isn’t on the page, the metaphor is everywhere in seinen and shonen alike — it’s just such a clean, human image. For me it’s one of those small things that keeps circling back to the same human ache in different stories, and I love spotting it in different tones and settings.

I tend to spot the bird-as-metaphor across quite a few manga, even if they don’t utter the exact phrase 'this bird has flown.' A few clear examples pop into my head: Griffith in 'Berserk' with his hawk symbolism — his departures read like wings closing behind him — and Itachi in 'Naruto,' where crows and scattering birds stand for vanishing and sacrifice. In other works you’ll find sailors and scouts using gulls or swallows to signal someone’s gone; in darker stories a bird’s flight equals an opportunity lost or a life ended. It’s a tiny, flexible image that can mean escape, betrayal, freedom, or death depending on the scene, and that adaptability is why writers keep leaning on it. I always get a little thrill when a single bird changes the emotional color of an entire chapter.