Mystical Mermaid

Resident Mermaid

Age 34
Female
Seen July 22nd, 2012
Posted July 16th, 2012
66 posts
10.9 Years
Hair color in anime is often used to depict traits about a character. This is by no means a complete list, nor does it mean every character to have these hair colors acts like this. I'll provide a few examples though.

Pink haired characters are often spunky, curious and bubbly (Chibi-Usa/ Rini from Sailor Moon, Sakura from Naruto).

Blue hair often signifies a calm, sometimes shy demeanor (Hanon from Mermaid Melody), but just as often signifies a character who can be over the top and hyper (Konata from Lucky Star).

Black hair, especially with spikes is a common trait of shonen characters, especially those who crave action and excitement (Ash Ketchum, Goku from Dragonball).

Red hair (as in the actual color red, not orange) is often found on boistrous, loud characters, or those with firey tempers (Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth, Jessie)

White, silver, or grey hair on characters who are not elderly often implies an air of mystery (Rei from Evangaleon), but can also signify a villain (Sephiroth, even if he's not from an anime, Sesshomaru from InuYasha; I'm leaving his brother out of it because he has more dog-like features, justifying the white hair in his heroic status).

Bald characters are almost always villains (Lordgenome from Gurren Lagen, Vargus from Negima), unless they are Chinese-styled monks (Krillin from Dragonball).
Seen September 18th, 2020
Posted February 18th, 2018
7,741 posts
16.6 Years
Full-spectrum hair colours apparently began as the easiest way for the characters to be differentiated at all in animation, along with height. Naturally archetypes would form over it based on what common culture perceives of various colours but there are no universal rules to the matter. Note as a start that that many anime opt for realistic colours; second that it is such a prevalent and recognisable theme that subversion is common; and so on.


White, silver, or grey hair on characters who are not elderly often implies an air of mystery (Rei from Evangaleon)
Rei's hair is blue.

Skitty1

Highlight my signature :)

Seen July 20th, 2012
Posted July 18th, 2012
171 posts
11.2 Years
^Oh hell no... no Rei - I hate NGE with a bloody passion... it has got to be amongst the most over [censored (hint begins with an "f")] rated anime's to ever have been spawned...

Rei character purpose: ooh look at me!!! I am a horny clone who wants to [censored (hint begins with an "f")] Shinji's dad. Also my other purpose is fan service and to be put half naked on dvd covers to make extra sales!!! ooooh.

Any waay back on top... hair colours in anime I guess are just for looks - but I don't think any one can tell for sure.
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Kura

twitter.com/puccarts

Age 33
Female
London, UK (orig. Toronto, Canada)
Seen August 30th, 2021
Posted August 24th, 2021
10,993 posts
18.7 Years
I think it's very important- colour is all about design so some of the characters probably wouldn't be the way they are trait-wise if not for their hair colour.
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parallelzero

chelia.blendy

Age 32
The capital of Canada (not Toronto)
Seen May 11th, 2015
Posted May 20th, 2013
14,627 posts
19.3 Years
I think a lot of the time, coloured hair is only to make it easier to tell characters apart and make them more unique. It's often reflected in their characters as well, and there are even cases where having a different hair colour means something like the character being foreign, or even inhuman.

^Oh hell no... no Rei - I hate NGE with a bloody passion... it has got to be amongst the most over [censored (hint begins with an "f")] rated anime's to ever have been spawned...

Rei character purpose: ooh look at me!!! I am a horny clone who wants to [censored (hint begins with an "f")] Shinji's dad. Also my other purpose is fan service and to be put half naked on dvd covers to make extra sales!!! ooooh.

Any waay back on top... hair colours in anime I guess are just for looks - but I don't think any one can tell for sure.
Do me a favor. Do an image search on Google and search "Evangelion DVD covers" and find one that has Rei wearing less than 95% of her clothing. You won't find any, not at all. At no point did Rei even show as much as a sexual interest in any character, and her relationship with Gendo was distant, but held together by trust. I have an extremely hard time imagining your post being based off of anything aside from your own dislike for the show - I actually have a hard time imagining you having watched more than a single episode.

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