Close Call Haircut / Anime & Manga

• Joe from AR∀GO: City of London Police's Special Crimes Investigator — as he receives a pair of glasses that allow him to see demons, and sees Seth for what he really is, Seth responds with a glare that nicks Joe's cheek and cuts a few strands of his sideburns loose.
• Bleach:
  • Charlotte Cuuhlhourne goes berserk when Yumichika does this to him. It's implied that Yumichika did it deliberately to irritate Charlotte into releasing his power because that would allow him to fight at full strength as well.
  • Hisagi does this to Findor, who's a little unsettled by it but doesn't go berserk.
  • In the anime, Toushirou manages to slice off a chunk of Gin's hair during their fight. Gin just carries on smiling...
  • It appears as though Tsukishima had sliced off some of Orihime's hair when he cut her until it turns out that he'd done something else instead. She fixes up the hair damage with her powers. He does, however, slice off some of Riruka's hair when she blocks his attack on Ichigo during his Villainous Breakdown triggered by Ginjou's death. In addition, this time, he also cuts quite a bit of her shoulder off, and she has to be healed by Orihime.
• Meg from Burst Angel finds herself with a hole through her hair after Jo shoots through it to hit an enemy behind her.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Yue, after a mid-air scuffle with Ruby Moon, gets a portion of his hair severed by Ruby's swift hands.
• Happens in almost every fight scene in Change 123. Everyone loses a few strands here and there, and yet it never adds up to a visible difference.
• Chrono in Chrono Crusade has his braid cut off during a battle with Remington. Another example of an Important Haircut.
• Claymore:
  • During one of Teresa's fights, a few strands of her hair are seen blowing after her when Ilena attempts to attack her. However, this isn't so much a hint that she's losing her composure (quite the opposite) but to show that she's just that good and they can't even touch her.
  • Another example occurs when Clare rescues Galatea from Agatha's clutches—Clare's Windcutter nicks off a bit of Galatea's bangs, prompting Galatea to snark that her rescuer's technique needs refining.
• Lelouch's hair gets clipped in Code Geass when a completely broken Shirley shoots at him after being Mind Raped by Mao.
• Played perfectly straight in Devil May Cry: The Animated Series when Trish and Lady fight in the church. Trish fires on a temporarily helpless Lady, who feels no wound and pats herself down, to find strands of hair on her shoulder. "You bitch! You shot my hair!" and the fight turns to fisticuffs.
• In D.Gray-Man, Lenalee Lee's formerly long Girlish Pigtails are burned off in a close call during a life-threatening over-ocean battle with a level 3 Akuma, leaving her hair extremely short and unkempt in the process.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • This happens to Goku a couple of times. One scene in particular, from the first movie, is even included in the credits of the English version. Of course, Goku being a Saiyan, it's back to normal by the next scene every time. Vegeta explains that "pure-blooded Saiyans have been spared from the grotesquary of hair growth", so it stays the same no matter what.
  • In the special Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks, Trunks manages to cut off a small bit of Android 18's hair using his sword. She gets angry "My hair! It doesn't grow back!" then proceeds, with the help of Android 17 to beat Trunks to a pulp.
  • During Vegeta's battle with Recoome, he tries to kill Recoome by blasting his head off with a ki-blast, but he survives the attack and it only burns off most of his hair.
  • Dabura slashes at Gohan with a sword and takes off three strands of hair. Dabura is disappointed since he was aiming to kill.
• Occurs in Elfen Lied to multiple characters (mainly Lucy and Nana). However, more often than not, people do get dismembered and sliced in half a lot.
• In Fate/Zero, Saber loses a few strands of hair when she limbos under Lancer's spear to dodge a swipe. It's a very minor example, though, since her hairstyle doesn't change at all from that.
• In Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, Kaname Chidori is targeted by assassin Xia Yu Lan. Fortunately her knees buckle at that precise moment and so the bullet just clips her hair.
• In Fushigi Yuugi, a few strands of Tamahome's hair are severed (in addition to him getting a slash across the cheek) while saving Miaka from thugs, just to show how badass he is. Note that this happened before his fight with Suboshi, resulting in his Important Haircut.
• Future Diary has a cop, Kurusu (4th), firing a shot at a terrorist, Minene (9th), during the Sakurami Middle School bombing.
• In Gunsmith Cats, Rally gets a good portion of hair from the left side of her head cut off when Gray slashes at her with his prosthetic blade-arm.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • Mikuru is subject to one of these during the baseball game when she ducks a fast-moving baseball headed straight for her head. Not too long after, Yuki experiences the same thing, excepts she does it while standing comfortably at attention and catches only the balls that head straight for her face and other vital spots on her body.
  • Yuki gets another two from Mikuru while filming the movie. Not by baseballs, not by BB pellets, but by pressurized water balls, which promptly decimate the landscape behind her — at point blank range.
• In Hunter × Hunter, Biscuit gets one of her pigtails cut off in a fight shortly after she is introduced. She continues to sport one-and-a-half pigtails for a while afterwards, before switching to a single ponytail.
• In the second episode of Inuyasha, a rampant Inuyasha takes a swipe at Kagome, but she trips and he only cuts off a small piece of her hair.
• In Jormungand, a lasting example occurs for Wilee: A bullet grazed his head during the First Gulf War, leaving a wound where hair didn't grow back in a distinctive rectangular patch. So, he buzzed the other side of his head to match.
• In King of Thorn, not long after Marco gives Kasumi a gun, she fires it accidentally and parts his hair.
• Kino's Journey:
  • The young Shishou's hair has a ragged, gunshot appearance◊, as though this is the only way she cuts her hair. Given the way she's been known to cut down trees later in life, this is perhaps unsurprising.
  • Also, in the first coliseum fight, Kino faces an assassin with a bladed boomerang that manages to give her a tiny shave on the way back. Later Kino does this deliberately, clipping the hair of a Master Swordsman to test his resolve. He doesn't flinch.
• Lupin III: Part II:
  • In one episode, Goemon has left Lupin's gang for another gang whom he thinks fits his lifestyle better, since he has betrayed them, Lupin feels that he should kill Goemon. So Lupin fires a shot at his head but Goemon ducks and the bullet grazes his cheek and cuts off a few locks of his hair.
  • In another, Jigen gets this from Zenigata as he tries to flee the officer's gunfire.
• In Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, Yako gets her hair clipped when Neuro uses her to demonstrate a "Slingshot Guillotine" (more visible in the manga).
• In the first episode of My Bride is a Mermaid, Nagasumi loses a few strands of hair when a dagger hits the wall close to his head. In a later episode, Akeno actually slices the top of his head off.
• My-HiME:
  • Natsuki is angered to find that sword-wielding Mikoto has sheared off part of her hair with her giant claymore during their fight in the first episode. In this case, the actual cut isn't shown, just the aftermath when Natsuki discovers it.
  • In a later episode, she does this to Nagi when she attempts to shoot him, but the bullet misses and leaves a nasty mark on his hair.
• Shizuru Viola in My-Otome has a sniper's bullet shot through her hair that takes out a spy she's captured (see the main page's image), though the damage is not noticeable by her next appearance.
• A Naruto villain seemed particularly ticked off every time her hair was damaged. It turns out that it's because she's actually a body-snatching wig — the hair is her real body.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Negi, Yue, Nodoka, Tsukuyomi, and even Fate have experienced this.
• Happens twice to Kirika in Noir, once in the form of a bullet that grazes her head, apparently leaving her uninjured and undoing part of her Laser-Guided Amnesia, and again with a sword-wielding nun in the final episode. Mirielle also had one of these when she was a child, at the hands of then-Creepy Child Silvana; that's the apparent reason for her "half-bang" hairstyle.
• It happens in One Piece in the fight between Zoro and Hatchan. At one point during his fight with Hatchan, Zoro lops off one of the spikes of his hairdo. For a few seconds, the octopus man looks as if he's about to blow a gasket, but then he immediately calms down as he realizes "It's only hair, after all. It'll grow back."
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In one episode, a Scyther lops off part of Jessie's distinctive hairdo, and she becomes obsessed with getting even with the Pokémon. Not only does she fail, but the Scyther ends up giving her, James, and Meowth mohawks in the end.
  • In another episode, a Seviper that Team Rocket is trying to catch does the same thing. Jessie beats it into submission with her bare hands, then captures it.
• Akane getting caught in the middle of Ranma's fight with Ryoga in Ranma ½, and the subsequent haircut, is an example that overlaps with Important Haircut.
• Nanami of Revolutionary Girl Utena has this happen during her duel with Utena to emphasize the loss of her composure.
• This happens a couple of times to Kenshin of Rurouni Kenshin.
• One Monster of the Week in Sailor Moon was a doll with razor-sharp, projectile appendages. Sailor Mars just barely misses losing her head, and instead loses a few strands.
• This is how Goku lost his long hair in Saiyuki when Gojyo first activated the shakujo staff without knowing how to use it.
• The Seven Deadly Sins:
  • Played for Laughs when Ban uses Jericho's attack to shave his beard off and then compliments her for being a good hairdresser.
  • Played straight in King fight with Guila.
• Shaman King uses this on Bokuto no Ryu as a running gag, as his Elvis-esque pompadour is cut repeatedly. Very rarely is his pompadour ever intact, though he will go to absurd ends to cover up his mangled hair. (In the manga, he claims to use the hair-care product "Wrongain", obviously a Rogaine-spoof, to quickly grow his pompadour back.)
• A Rare Male Example occurs in Shattered Angels, with Kazuya dodging a gunshot from his antagonistic sister Mika at the last instant. The bullet is seen tearing off a small section of his red hair.
• Shimoneta: Kousuri's made a habit of pushing other people's buttons for her own amusement — but it nearly costs her when she deliberately provokes Anna's jealousy over Tanukichi. Anna retaliates by throwing a carving knife, which narrowly misses Kousuri as it shreds a hole through the right side of her hair.
• In Slayers, Lina gets a magic-suppressing tiara latched onto her head to prevent her from using magic or suffer a nasty shock. After she and Gourry escaped from their cell, Gourry finds their weapons, and without hesitation, tosses Lina up and slices at her face with his sword as she fell. It takes off a small strand of hair but ultimately sliced off the tiara from her head. Due to the pain, she repays him by bashing him over the head with her own sweatdrop.
• Snow White with the Red Hair: Tsuruba loses his ponytail when he's ambushed by assassins and one tries to decapitate him. It's only the first and least bloody of several Identical Twin ID Tags that he and Tariga pick up during the night that prove that if they both manage to survive they're going to be a lot easier to tell apart.
• Softenni has Kotone, in a fit of jealousy, manage to undo Coach Mishimagi's ponytail and cut off a part of his hair. With a soft tennis ball.
• Death the Kid in Soul Eater had some of his hair cut off during a fight. However, since he's very obsessed with balance and symmetry, it was sufficient to knock him out.
• In Sword Art Online, this happens to Kirito during the Phantom Bullet arc, from a sniper bullet. He knows it's coming, but can afford to stand in the open as bait to reveal the attacker's position.
• In Tales of Wedding Rings, Granart lunges at Satou and slashes at his face. He barely manages to dodge with some frantic backpedaling, though her sword still trims the tips of his bangs.
• Nia from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann cuts her hair short after it's riddled with bullets during a fight. It's also Character Development since the one who helps her with that is Cool Big Sis Yoko, showing that they're putting away their disagreements.
• In Toriko both Starjun and Midora are subjected to that, due to having enormously long hair.
• Slicer cuts off Miyuki's braid in the Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever OVA.
  • This is later referenced in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS with Signum as a Mythology Gag.
  • Speaking of Nanoha, you can barely see it (it's one of those "pause it and THEN you'll see it), but in Nanoha and Fate's climatic battle, some of Nanoha's hair is shot off by Fate's Projectile Spell.
• In Upotte!!, Sako shoots off Sig's hair bun. Sig soon returns the favor by shooting off Sako's side braid and letting her know that if she has to take a second shot, it'll be Sako's ear that comes off next.
• In Ushio and Tora, Ushio tries to take out an enemy by tossing the spear... but only shaves off a few hairs.
• Sakuya get hers lopped off by a spear in Utawarerumono.
• In Wild Rock, Emba just barely escapes from the alligator he's trying to save Yuuen from. His Braid Of Action gets snapped clean off in the alligator's jaws.
• A variation occurs in the second episode of Zombie Loan: The cleaver that cuts off one of Michiru's braids actually does hit and fatally wound her, subverting the "close call" aspect. But she's later resurrected and cuts the second one off herself.

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