When added to female characters, blue anime hairstyles indicate someone is shy and socially awkward. Like the blonde hair trope, this anime hairstyle has a number of variations depending on the gender of the character who has it. Kamisato Ayato from Genshin Impact fills several tropes about blue hair and long hair on male anime characters. If you’re having a hard time appreciating the quirks of anime hairstyles, here’s a quick guide to the meanings of anime’s most prominent visual shorthands. They’re narrative techniques that help shows communicate a character’s temperament, personality, and, in some cases, values. It looks weird to many new viewers, but anyone who sticks around to watch a few shows quickly realizes that these anime hairstyles aren’t just stylistic choices. Whether it’s playing a trope straight, subverting a trope, or actively trying to exclude it, tropes remain a guiding influence in how a piece of media was developed.Īmong the most recognizable tropes of the 21st century are the so-called anime hairstyles.Īnime hairstyles are famous for their physics-defying size and shape as well as their unnatural colors. No matter how much people like to say that they prefer their shows and movies to be one-of-a-kind gems, there is no single piece of media that doesn’t have some trope in it. Anime hairstyles are not restricted to anime shows - plenty of games and Western animated shows take inspiration from anime and the hairstyles featured in them.While anime hairstyles may look weird to viewers who aren’t familiar with anime, they serve as an effective visual shorthand that communicates what kind of personality a character has.Anime hairstyles have a reputation for being unrealistic due to their unnatural colors and physics-defying structure.