Hair Tropes in Japanese Media
Once you’ve read a few visual novels or seen a few anime, it can feel like you’re able to judge a new character from just their appearance. You see twin-tails on a girl and you know she’ll be a tsundere, or they wear their hair in a tight bun and you know they’ll have a strict attitude. But is it really true, or are we just suffering from confirmation bias? Are we only remembering the instances where our predictions were correct? I decided to find out by analysing the character data on VNDB to see what character traits tend to pop up more frequently with certain hairstyles. This post will only analyse male characters, with female characters being counted next time.
Source data
I downloaded the character tags for every VN on VNDB with at least 5 votes, collecting data on 48772 characters in total. I filtered out any non-male characters, leaving 14878 characters. After merging any duplicates (where the same character appears in multiple VNs), I was left with 12289 characters to analyse.
For each hairstyle, I compared how often tags in the categories “clothes,” “personality,” “role,” and “engages in” came up compared with the average. The 5 tags in each category with the biggest increase (compared with the average) could be considered those most closely linked to that hairstyle and are listed in the results below.
Keep in mind that these results
aren’t definitive. Even with 12k characters, there are some hairstyles
and traits that are fairly rare, so just a few random occurrences can
boost their stats considerably and cause some spurious results. This
analysis is meant more for fun than as proof of any trope. These results
only cover VNs, although with the large number of adaptations both to
and from anime and manga, the results should still be applicable to
drawn Japanese media as a whole.
The meaning of some of the traits can be a little unclear. You can look up the exact definition used on VNDB using their search field here, and a summary of less well-known terms is here.
While brown hair seems to be the mark of the typical “ordinary student living an ordinary life” VN staple, their black haired compatriots seem to take on more serious roles that the protagonist looks up to.
Blond guys seem to linked loosely to posh brats.
The allure of white haired guys comes through in their traits: the refined outfits and the aloof attitude which can seem so attractive.
Red headed guys tend to be as fiery as their hair colour, being so hot-blooded.
Pink isn’t just a fantastic colour, it’s also a mark of a fantastic character with it being the biggest sign that a character cross-dresses~
It seems the most dangerous people to have around are those with multicoloured hair, getting involved in murder and criminal activities. Perhaps those raving about the terrors of dyed hair “SJWs” were right, but only in the world of 2D.
So
it seems those getting on in years and losing their hair aren’t just
wise, but also idiots? Are we sure they’re idiots or are we just too
idiotic to understand their wisdom?
It seems the longer a character’s hair, the more confident they become. They transition through from being a popular womanizer at shoulder-length, to being mysterious narcissists at “very long” hair.
Those
tufts of hair known as ahoges and antennas are almost like a third arm
waving hello, marking the owner as a kind and friendly individual.
Bang guys just want to have fun. They seem much kinder and active than those without. No bang, no life.
Straight hair seems to be more the mark of a sibling, while spiky characters are more adventurous and fun.
Slicked back hair seems to be a style for an older generation, kept mainly for characters with adult roles.
Parted to one side seems to be for those who care for a more formal appearance, being closely linked to neckties.
Almost
any kind of facial hair seems to be linked to the character taking on a
more parental role, probably due to so many protagonists being
school-age and unable to grow facial hair of their own.
As you might expect, those with stubble live a more relaxed and carefree life, or else they’ve been working so hard as to not have had the chance to shave.
Thick eyebrows are well-used by their wearers, all the better to look on disapprovingly with the strict attitudes.
Ponytails mostly seem to be linked to honourable warrior archetypes.
Side
hair seems to be unusually closely linked to being an orphan, have they
not been taught an easier way to keep their hair out of their eyes?
Sunglasses seem to be a consistent theme among many of the more fancy hair styles, popping up with mohawks, afros, and dreadlocks.
I
hope you had fun looking over results. I don’t think there’s anything
too surprising in them, but it’s fun to look for any stereotypes you
might have had about a hair style. My next post will be doing the same
analysis on female characters, followed by the analysis on yandere
traits that I teased about last post.
Thanks again to Part-time Storier, /u/8cccc9, and /u/tauros113
for their help in analysing and presenting this data. I love discussing
this stuff, so if you’d like to get in touch and chat, you can contact
me here on tumblr, reddit, or twitter.
