Forum - View topicHair colour = Personality traits in the bag!
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biglemon7
Posts: 17 |
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xxx
Last edited by biglemon7 on Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18445 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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No, characters with similar hair colors having similar personalities is actually a long-established phenomenon which dates back at least to the mid-'90s and probably much earlier. Some of it has to do with using characters from earlier series as archetypes (which has happened very extensively with NGE's Rei and Asuka) but it's more than that. For instance, orange hair is often a sure sign of a fiery, tempestuous personality.
Actually, using color schemes in general to define basic personality types dates back at least to the uniforms of the heroes in '70s sentai (super-hero team) series. You can see Bleach poking fun at that in episodes involving Don Kanoji, and to an extent you can see that in fare such as Sailor Moon and Power Rangers, too. |
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NocturnalUX
 Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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As Key stated, it is not exactly news. In fact it is even a trope:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HairColors |
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Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
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Sasami has blue hair, Nyu's other personality has red hair, etc. None of this means anything.
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biglemon7
Posts: 17 |
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xxx
Last edited by biglemon7 on Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Watch Rumbling Hearts. The quiet girl has red hair and the out-going, loud one has blue.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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This makes me think of the real life examples of how Redheads are trouble and blonds are ditsy in terms of women. While I'm sure there are dumb blonds I'm sure there's as many dumb brown, black, and red haired women as well. The same goes for men. The lesson being while there may be patterns it's never good to carry such pre-disposed ideas and give them real credit. Don't judge a book by it's cover basically.
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Ultenth
 Posts: 229 Location: Washington State |
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In a lot of ways it's more about the style of their hair than their color sometimes. Like twin tails = tsundere most of the time lately, and short hair that comes down in front of their eyes is usually a shy character. There is a lot more too it than just color, but yeah, there are a lot of preset character types out there that are based on certain hair color and style, along with body type. It's been pretty well known for a long long time.
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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In real life? Absolutely. However anime is fiction and thus free of this truth. Sure in real life any given personality has an equal chance of matching up with any given hair color. However, in anime a personality is much more likely to be matched up with a hair color that seems to "fit". It does in fact stem from these percieved trends in real life. However, unlike real life they are not just percieved. It also comes from the larger idea that colors comunicate certain moods and feelings. Ofcourse, these are just trends. Often, infact maybe the majority of the time, it won't follow these trends. |
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Amethyst Alchemist
Former ANN Editor
 Posts: 312 Location: where it's always a good morning |
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I've thought a lot about this type of thing actually. Often, there are lots of bizarre hair colors with no explanation. That really bugs me, but it's interesting the colors they chose.
One color I find particularly recurring and pervasive. It even happens in the most serious shows that don't normally do the crazy hair color thing (i.e. Near in Death Note). I am talking about white hair. It tends to turn up in kids or teens a lot, especially males. I've actually made a list of white-haired characters I've seen. I don't include old people that would normally have white hair. I do include some grayish hues. So far, from the anime I've seen, I've counted 69 such characters  . White definitely seems to be "in."
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NocturnalUX
Posts: 448 Location: Portugal |
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White hair seems to be a sub trope, actually:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhiteHairedPrettyBoy |
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BellosTheMighty
 Posts: 767 |
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I'm not an expert on art, but I'm under the impression that an anime character's hair color is suppossed to complement some other aspect of their design, usually the eyes. If you look, you see a lot of characters have hair that matches their eye color.
Colors and shapes also have unconscious meanings to our minds, defined either by cultural contexts or the collective unconscious. (Depending on which psychologist you ask.) The association of red with energy, danger, and a certain degree of chaos is one of the clearest. |
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1361 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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Red heads, or those associated with red -- they normally have "fiery" personalities. Some are to the point of being hot-headed.
EDIT: And I just realized something. Someone look up corresponding personality traits with color. Western civilization has its own set of meanings, such as "white" meaning "pure", "red" meaning "love", and stuff like that. Color meanings under Eastern traditions should be different. |
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CommunistHamster
Posts: 51 |
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1/4 There are certainly trends, but it's not set in stone. |
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BellosTheMighty
Posts: 767 |
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Actually, I find it more likely that they're similar- the correspondences are probably based on universalities of human experience. For example, red represents danger, because our blood is red, and we know instinctively that something which is bleeding is in trouble. But dangerous situations can also be exciting, especially when you face them and emerge victorious. So red also represents excitement and energy. White is pure because it's a fragile color- take a white garment, and the tiniest thing will smudge it, making it not white. Or take snow- when there's snow on the ground, it has a pleasant air of the undisturbed. But as soon as something touches it, it ceases to be so. So to remain white something must be completely untouched. Black represents evil because darkness robs us of our sight, our most important sense. It renders us vulnerable to anything that might be dangerous, and look to do us harm. So black, the color of the night, scares us. And so forth. |
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