Anime hair ranges from drab to the impossible. I thought to turn toward some of the The odder hair styles we can find in our favorite medium.
The hair in Afro Samurai reminds me more of a tree than hair. It is a blob of color that swirls like smoke. It lacks a lot of definition found in most anime hair styles. Whereas anime tends to require at least a gallon of ultra hold hair gel, Afro Samurai’s hair styles are free and move like fire. That certainly makes them weird for the anime world.
Jessie from Pokemon is a textbook example of someone who fell into a vat at a hair gel factory and then uses an oil barrel as a curling iron. If you look at it right, her hair looks like it is eating her head like a purple earthworm.
Ryunosuke Umemiya from Shaman King is an Elvis wannabe caught in a permanent wind. Of course, gravity doesn’t affect hair in the anime world. John Travolta looks like a Grease amateur compared to the oil this this guy’s hair. The purple collar only adds to the pimping ridiculousness.
Goku’s hair only gets worse as he grows in power. Although, it is fitting to look like he stuffed his meaty hands into a power plant’s generator. The blonde spikes remind me of an artichoke. Oddly enough, when he powers up even further he loses his eyebrows. Why do only three locks of…hair… obey gravity? That is the true mystery.
Yugi’s hair from Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely one of the weirdest around. Lightning bolts? Check. Impossibly even purple tips with black hair? Check. He looks like he fell into a tie-dye vat while playing with a hair dryer. Maybe anime characters should start using towels to dry their hair.
Bleach’s Kenpachi adds to the spiky hair trend. Tipped with bells, his hair refuses to succumb to gravity! Considering people in Bleach can stand in midair, why not have hair that defies physics? He boasts an oddly jagged receding hair line. I wonder what radio stations he picks up?
What are your favorite impossible or weird anime hair styles?
You obviously don’t know much about anime or art at all, if you can only make realistic comparisons.
This was meant to be fun, joking post. I could have gone into a Jungian analysis of what each hair style represents and some of the East Asian symbols involved, but that wasn’t the point of the post. Goku’s hair, for example, is in the general shape of a lotus. The lotus is the Buddhism symbol for enlightenment and the opening to understanding or a higher level of existence. A rather apt design for him, right?
Right you are, id like to see more of that and less of this or all of it together, even better 🙂
I will keep that in mind for a future article. Anime, like any story telling medium, is rich with symbols. I often write serious, researched articles. There are times when I need a break from digging around in academic databases. Hence the infrequent, lighter-hearted article like this one.
Sorry I doubted you Senpai, id like to see you expand on this topic more in depth, cool site youve got going here.
I am glad you called me out. You gave me an excellent idea for several articles! Thank you! 🙂
Please, let’s continue on the YuGiOh spree and see just how weird these hairstyles can get!
I wonder how many barrels of hair gel is needed for these hair styles?
Trowa Barton
Those are some crazy bangs!
Well if you go to maybe an anime convention you can find some people with their crazy hair trying to be like whoever. Let’s take naruto chracters for example maybe there hair just grows green pink etc etc etc and yet there hair stays perfect length and never grows Since they have people turning into wolfes and things and giant toad things it seems logical that there hair grows weird colors. And for their hair styles maybe they use a SUPERUBER hair gel that one use lasts a whole year lol.
I noticed many of the really over-the-top hair styles tend to be wigs. Although, if you look at geisha hair styles, it is possible to create elaborate,sculptural hair styles. However, in the case of the geisha, you sacrifice some cleanliness; they wouldn’t wash their hair as regularly as we do because of the expense of the style. I am uncertain if this is true with modern geisha.
=D West, I love Riley, but he doesn’t count in this thread; it says best anime hairstyles. Riley isn’t from an anime. XD
♥Damn that Naruto. Always looking so damn cute.:hearts:
lol remember the abridged series Sui XDDDDD “hey, only people with crazy hair can go to duelist kingdom!” Yugi says, “Hey he is with me.” “WOOOOOW that guys hair is crazy enough for two people. Alright you can go.” :laugh:Yeah, Yugioh Abridged FTW. XDDD So none of you can deny his awesome weird hair-ness-isoty! Yugi/Yami pwn all other hair styles!
Riley’s hair is interesting, but you are right, he isn’t anime despite being drawn in the style.
That is a great GIF of Naruto. Would make a great shampoo ad!
Well, a couple of years ago here in the UK, they brought out this manga hair gel. I do not know if it is just a UK think, but some people here have the craziest hair styles and call it fashion. I mean, some of them would put anime to shame. lol. I think that an Edward Elric style hair would not look that unusual, I mean, the only really wierd thing is his fringe. Yu-Gi hair on the other hand…. let’s not. Although I would love to see what it looked like. lol. I do not know if it is against the rules, but can someone post pictures or crazy anime hair styles.lol would be a good laugh.
That must be some strong hair gel! You are welcome to post image links as long as they are not sexually explicit or depict anything hateful.
You are right on all three counts! Hair is one of the ways to differentiate characters. Clothing isn’t always an captain when you have a high school story for example. Realistic hair wouldn’t translate well in the stark black and white manga art style.
Making the impossible possible is what makes anime great! I’m not sure if this counts as impossible, but I’ve always liked Natsu’s hairstyle.
Anime and manga are certainly creative. She has an interesting hair style that reminds me of an octopus or a lily.
1. Because anime character is differentiated only by it’s hair. Not literally, but anime characters are all have similar body, similar face, similar eye. So the only thing that truly differentiate them is the hair (and hair color).
2. Because realistic hair is pain in the xxx to draw. Time consuming and very hard to do even for a single frame. Not to mention there’s still possibility people can’t differentiate those hair.
3. Because they are cool 😉