Before I was an anime fan, I was a Star Trek fan, and I grew up watching re-runs of the original classic 1966 series. When Star Trek The Animated Series came along in the 1970s, I remember being thrilled because suddenly they were able to portray aliens on the bridge that varied wildly from the usual “make-up and brow ridges” that was all they could manage in the original, because anything that can be imagined can be animated. This was my introduction to the idea that anything is possible in the medium of animation…even anime girls with prehensile hair, which can move and grasp objects and smack other characters around when there’s a need.
The first thing most of us notice about anime are the hugely expressive eyes, which is kind of funny because we perceive the eyes as taking up 50% of each character’s face all the time, despite the fact that there’s quite a lot of variance in how eyes are depicted from show to show, and many character designers create faces with normal or even small eyes. Next, we usually fixate on the fact that anime characters have strangely-colored hair, from green to blue to pink, which no human has ever had naturally. But why stop at impossible hair colors? If it strikes the fancy of the animators, it’s even possible to draw anime girls with prehensile hair, that moves and reacts in tune with the character’s emotions!
I asked the J-List Twitter followers to name their favorite anime girls with prehensile hair, or similarly impossible hair, and here’s what we came up with…
- A lot of twin-tail hair moves with its own will whenever the story calls for it, even though it makes no sense. Hestia from Danmachi is one example.
- Saki Amano from Kanamemo has hair that’s basically a separate life form.
- Our favorite alien invader Squid Girl, whose tentacle-like hair can do anything you can imagine, including play the perfect game of volleyball.
- Similarly inhuman is Yami from To Love-Ru Darkness, whose flowing blonde hair is able to do many sexy things for the enjoyment of fans.
- “Drill hair” is super cute, especially when the hair drills spin around whenever the girl gets mad.
- Ahoge (“idiot hair”) is a single strand of unruly hair that refuses to be tamed. In the case of the Araragi family in Monogatari Series, the strand of hair reacts constantly to the story, expressing the emotions of the characters.
- Sometimes the ahoge is elevated to tentacle status, as in Haiyore! Nyaruko-san. Which makes sense, as Nyaruko is Nyarlathotep, a Lovecraftian deity of chaos.
- Sanae Dekamori from Chu2koi, by our beloved Kyoto Animation, has mastered the subtle art of twin-jutsu, or fighting using her twin-tails as weapons. Or something like that.
Got any other examples of impossible anime hair that caught your attention? Tell us on Twitter!
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