The hair color and hairstyle have meanings. There are generalizations but, for most animes, they still stick with the general context. The hair color or style shows the personalities and motives of the characters.
Meaning, in most cases, the color of an anime character’s hair does not reflect some natural hair color or a racial stereotype – instead, it is supposed to be a hint towards their personality and their role in the plot. I guess it’s high time for a crash course in anime hair color symbolism…take a seat.
Hair Color: What Does It Say About You?
So, giving a character strange-colored hair (as opposed to the typical brown or black hair) is a way of marking them as exotic and therefore, more interesting. The vampire horror anime "Shiki" gives its characters strange-looking hair to make them look even more eerie than they otherwise would.
Top 10 Anime Hairstyles for Men
Left: Sinbad (Magi), Yuri (Angel Beats) Characters with purple hair enjoy being in the spotlight. These characters are usually noble and powerful, such as royal figures. As such, their goals revolve around gaining prestige, wealth, and material possessions. They are cultured, dainty, and mysterious.
The reason why character tend to have crazy hair colors and styles is to make them different from the rest of the characters. Not just in that particular anime or manga, but in the real world too.
Green hair is one of the odder hair colors in anime. It is the color of nature. Green is also the complementary color of red. The green personality is also the complement of red. Green hair represents the cycle of reproduction and change.
Red hair is associated with a temper or an outgoing personality. That core idea exported into anime. Red heads are full of raw energy and often associated with fire. Red heads are resilient; they seek to survive at all costs.
According to Merrick, the color pink is associated with a long list of traits: "gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, caring, sweetness, compassion, tenderness, nurturance, and deference." "When it comes to our auras this color is very strategic. It's all about romance, nostalgia, and love," she explains.
Orange is a mix of blonde and red character elements. Orange characters tend to be flamboyant and attention seekers. The color has the energy of red hair and sometimes either the goofy, naive, or dumb aspects of blonde. Orange characters can be annoying because they want so much attention from the audience.
Blue hair: typically signifies a quiet, soft-spoken, intellectual, sometimes even introverted character – albeit often one with a surprisingly strong will. In addition, such characters tend to get portrayed as refined, tradition-oriented and feminine, quite often even as examples of the Yamato Nadeshiko ideal.
The "blue hair effect" has been used as a metaphor for social distancing. For example, a man who worked for a hospital for 10 years was fired for coming to work with blue hair after refusing to dye it back to its normal color.
Brown hair, rich, soulful shades of ebony, chestnut, and walnut, were portrayed as mature, sophisticated, and smart, while redheads were often characterized as bold, passionate, and fiery. Those stigmas are still going strong today, and are often played up in mainstream media.
Hair means something different to each of us, but Black hair has a uniquely meaningful history as a symbol of survival, resistance and celebration. It's been wielded as a tool of oppression and also one of empowerment—and our society's perceptions of Black hair still influence how Black people are treated today.
With elder characters, white hair denotes maturity, wisdom, and dignity. Sometimes these characteristics are applied to younger characters, but this seems to be rare.
It is more common in Anime, but it can happen in any style. It might be just how the art style is, or the character might literally be lacking a nose. This noselessness is a favorite target of a Stylistic Self-Parody.
How to make the central figures stand out then? Giving them unusual, high-pigment hair colors was the obvious answer.
Among people who are inspired by anime and propelled by social media, cosplay has become a popular fad, and anime wigs are top-selling accessories in the business.
There, male characters have red hair more often than female characters. Why? Well, due to the symbolism of the color red, it is easier to attribute these traits to male characters, who are usually more straightforward than female characters. Female characters tend to be more withdrawn , which is why this color is more common with male characters.
If we had to, on the other hand, we would say that brown-haired anime characters are generally approachable, comfortable, charming, consistent, sincere and enduring. These are all relatively normal traits and they are something which you would expect from a normal human being or a protagonist of a certain show.
As far as girls go, most black-haired anime girls are shy and asocial, although this isn’t really a rule. There are those that are outgoing, but this group is usually accompanied by some sort of danger, be it something more benign (like a mischievous character) or truly dangerous (like sociopathic tendencies). The rule is – if you see a black-haired girl smiling wickedly, run… run as fast as you can. Boys, on the other hand, aren’t that sociable and most black-haired anime boys are very clever and cunning. They are most often dangerous in some way, although they do not have to be bad necessarily; still, a lot of antagonists in anime series have black hair. A lot of anti-heroes in anime also have black hair. Anyhow, black-haired characters should necessarily be avoided, but one should definitely be careful around them.
On a general level, blue-haired characters are usually special in one way or the other and in fantastical settings, they usually have some special abilities. Their personalities range from cute to calculated, but they are rarely on the team of evil in the world of anime.
Brown (茶色 chairo) Taichi Yagami from Digimon is a great example of the protagonist-type of character usually associated with brown hair. Brown is a color that has become more popular in Japan in recent years, as many Japanese people dye their hair brown.
The closest color to black, in meaning, is dark blue.
Now, what symbolizes something usual and natural in the real world is not necessarily the same in the world of anime and manga. Although black color can, really, signify a traditional or marginal character, it could also be a sign that you are dealing with someone far more serious and dangerous than you thought.
Red hair. Left: Karma (Assassination Classroom), Ezra (Fairy Tail) Characters with red hair are often passionate, adventurous and enthusiastic. On the other hand, they can be hot-headed, aggressive and feisty. They portray leadership qualities with their headstrong personalities.
One important aspect of anime characters is their hair colour. Some characters have crazy hair colours that we don’t see everyday in real life. A character’s hair colour can actually say a lot about their personality ...
Pink hair is usually reserved for female characters. They are daydreamers and idealistic, with a child-like innocence. In many cases, they bring positive energy to the people around them. However, male characters with pink hair can be perverse.
Blue Hair. Left: Kuroko (Kuroko’s Basketball), Rei (Neon Genesis Evangelion) Another colour associated with nature is blue . Characters with blue hair can vary from being quiet to being cold and calculating, much like still water and cold temperatures.
Orange hair means that the character is courageous, optimistic, loyal, spirited and full of energy. They can also be selfish, annoying and attention-seeking. In some cases, they can be self-centered troublemakers.
Left: Levi (Attack on Titan), Nico (One Piece) Black hair may be another default hair colour especially in anime, but it carries deeper meaning. Characters with black hair often have had a dark past. These characters are intelligent, powerful and refined.
Usually, the most important characters in anime have different hairstyles and hair shapes, wild tips or a cool hairstyle to stand out in the crowd or among other characters . The objective is simple, to differentiate from the others, both within the work and from other works.
In some anime, one of the only ways to distinguish characters is by color and hair style , but sometimes even that is not enough! Some anime have simple features and can only be differentiated by the type of hair.
The purple-haired characters are also privileged, noble, elegant, restless, intriguing, pompous and selfish.
In Japan, the color pink implies youth and innocence - the youngest, cute and childish idols are often depicted with pink hair or pink accessories. It can indicate a kind, benevolent, delicate, spontaneous, feminine, childlike, naive and concerned person.
When styled, the japanese hair it is more likely to maintain its shape for longer periods than other ethnicities. This allows many Japanese to have stylized hair thanks to its texture.
There are infinite types and shapes of hair in anime, some have become patterns and can be found in different works. Others stand out and call attention, what do you think about seeing some of them?
A strange and inhuman essence involves the characters of White hair. They are so pure that they may seem unnatural. They are usually obstinate, skillful, serene, lucid, humble and narcissistic.
What’s the point of anime hair? It’s part of the visual language of anime, and as such conveys meaning. But it’s also a cheap and easy shortcut for identifying characters that might have approximately the same face. There are only so many anime faces you can have, and hair represents an easy way to distinguish between characters. It’s also easy to draw, helping animators make quick work of scenes that might have a number of characters. Without their distinctive hair styles, you might have a hard time differentiating the heroes of your favorite series.
Interesting, the degree of “reality” in hairstyles can sometimes indicate how serious an anime is. If characters have impossible hair styles and unreal hair colors, you might expect a more outlandish plot. If characters all have believable hairstyles with brown and black colors dominating, the art style might be supporting a more mature narrative.
Typically, the hair is at least as large as the character’s head. They’re sort of halfway between childish pigtails and regal ringlets. Ponytails are also fairly popular for male characters, especially in historical anime. If a male character has a short ponytail at the nape of the neck, they might be Chinese.
And sometimes it gets wild, with outrageously large , curled twintails called “ drill hair ” or mega twintails. This overlaps visually with ojou ringlets, which represent regal nature, but they don’t have the same meaning. Typically, the hair is at least as large as the character’s head. They’re sort of halfway between childish pigtails and regal ringlets.
Shōnen Hair. The most outrageous anime hair comes from Yu-Gi-Oh!. But the second most outrageous hair is Shōnen hair, found (unsurprisingly) in Shōnen anime and manga. These series are fighting-heavy, focusing on epic martial arts, tournaments, action and adventure.
Just like characters in American animated series often wear a uniform that helps fans identify them, anime characters are frequently identified, in part, by the hair. A wide array of improbable hairstyles are further differentiated by a vast array of colors unseen in nature.
Twintails, or dual ponytails, are more commonly called “pigtails” in the West. This style, with a ponytail on either side of the head, represents the same childishness that it does in Western visual media. Characters with twin tails might be immature, foolish or childish. They could be either charming or obnoxious, but they probably don’t know how to deal with mature or emotionally difficult situations. This hair style is often seen in tsundere characters.