Pointless as it is: Shy Blue Haired Girl

"shy and nervous, smart and friendly, or even both... sometimes aloof and stoic, tending not to make any friends... calm, quiet, and down-to-earth."

That description is so generic, that it fits practically any proper girl, who is not genki, violent, mean, or crazy.

Due to the large number of girls with blue hair, some ought to apply, but there are so many girl who would fit the description but happen to have another hair color, and so many who have blue hair with another personality, that it's hard to see any pattern. Even the natural blonde-redhead-brunette trio, that is only an unfounded steretype in Real Life, is much more directly recognized in fiction than these.

There are subtropes that could work, for example if we would limit it to those who are direct counterparts of a Fiery Redhead, and there is also a YKTTW in run about that specific robotic/Kuudere/Emotionless behavior that is really strongly associated with a certain short, pale-blue hairstyle, but such a supertrope is completely uneccessary.

On it's own, blue hair doesn't tell anything about a character's personality. Shy Green Haired Girl or Shy White Haired Girl, or Shy Black Haired Girl could get a similar list collected.

You would be surprised on how many Blue haired girls have this personality although there are a few purple haired people that fit this trope too but the standard is blue. (They even changed the Purple haired Nodoka in the Negima Second Season to blue when they were going for this personality type more than the manga. The other three blue haired girls also fit this although it takes 1 a while to show it.)

There is a rather large examples list and only a few aversions to this so whats the problem? This trope has been around a long time too and has good inbounds for being something almost Anime specific. (a majority of them are references to Ami Mizuno as well.)

edited 23rd Jun '11 4:38:15 AM by Raso

By "this personality" you mean what personality?

Nervous? Or stoic? Friendly? Or tending not to make any friends? Smart? Calm?

Yeah, a lot of blue haired girls fit these, but only because a lot of girls fit these, period. And there are lots of blue haired girls.

Let's collect a list of Shy Black Haired Girl, from the top of my head: Siesta from Zero No Tsukaima, Mai from Nichijou, Shiina from Angel Beats, Kuroneko from Ore Imo, multiple from School Days, Sawako from Kimi Ni Todoke, Anri from Durarara, Misaki from Dragon Crisis, Mio from K-on, Mayu from B Gata H Kei, Aoi from Asobi Ni Iku Yo, Yui from To Love Ru, Azuki from Bakuman, Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh, Tsurumi from Ano Hana, Shiori from Kami Nomi...

That's already more than the number of Shy Blue-Haired Girl that I could personally name in that way, even though the hair colors are almost equally common in anime.

And the number of listed examples only proves that the page is not obscure, not that it's a well-defined trope.

edited 23rd Jun '11 5:33:30 AM by EternalSeptember

Of those shows you just named how many allow You Gotta Have Blue Hair? K On, Azumanga Daioh, Ore Imo I know for sure have standard colored hair (not counting red headed or blond Japanese.). Anyway Black hair is usually just a catch all for everything since thats what a vast majority of japanese are.

Mai isnt really shy, Mio (who does have blue hair) however is to an extent when dealing with certain subjects such as the person she likes and her Yaoi Fan Girl status. Yui isnt as well she is an extreme Tsundere. And Shiina shy? Anyway we have a trope for that already Tall, Dark and Bishōjo.

We have Rose Haired Girl as well and its associated personality type.

Now if ya want to divide up You Gotta Have Blue Hair by hair color I support that. Also I dont see why two blue haired tropes cant coexist.

edited 23rd Jun '11 6:02:16 AM by Raso

These still have other semi-natural hair colors, yet the artists chose to paint the shy girl black, rather than blonde, red, or light brunette, and keep those for other personalities.

And other than that, it is balanced out by how black is one of the rarest hair colors in shows with universal You Gotta Have Blue Hair. For example, is there even a single black haired girl in something like Astarotte No Omocha, or Dog Days?

Mai is stoic and calm, that is described as an alternative in the description. Yui is nervous, and a Tsundere leaning on the dere side, that also gives a kind of shyness.

We still have a trope for them Tall, Dark and Bishōjo and Mai seems like a good example along the lines of Asagi from Yotsuba. (you don't always have to be tall to be in it...)

Anyways from To Love Ru Haruna is the Shy Blue-Haired Girl.

The shyness is the most important part of the trope everything else is pretty much extra.

Shows that have 0 black haired characters (above walk ons) though I would say thats trope worthy right there.

(I edited my above post while you were posting btw.)

edited 23rd Jun '11 6:47:24 AM by Raso

Yeah, I know that these black-haired examples are forced, but this is how the blue haired trope is used now. It's supposed to be about one type of personality, but the examples include Ayanami Rei, Furude Rika pre-reveal, Miki Sayaka, and Marge Simpson, and the description seems to allow all of these, as it includes everything from friendliness to unfriendliness, and from nervousnes to stoicism.

The title and parts of the description make it look like it works like Fiery Redhead or Dumb Blonde: those all have one clear element, being fiery, or dumb.

Yet in practice, it is used for collecting ALL blue-haired girls, like Rose Haired Girl, but that one is explicitly written about all rose haired girls, and only the description lists what might be the common meanings behind it:

"pink-haired girls are often either cheery and optimistic, strong and passionate, or docile and romantic."

The current position of Shy Blue Haired girl is similar to as if Rose Haired Girl would be called Cheery Rose Haired Girl, while the above description would stay, and continue to include all the above six variations and everything else.

If this one wants to keep all these possible meanings, such as stoicism, friendliness, and nervousness, it needs to be renamed as Blue Haired Girl, and admit that it's about all blue haired girls, and only tries to speculate about the most common meanings behind it.

edited 23rd Jun '11 7:16:41 AM by EternalSeptember

It's an expy thing AFAIK. I don't think it's much of a trope, but it's definitely an character clone thingy.

Now Blue Haired Girl might work like that actually. As I said I am not opposed to splitting You Gotta Have Blue Hair into their various colors and personality types. (probably want different tropes for girls and guys though like White-Haired Pretty Girl and White-Haired Pretty Boy.... big job.)

edited 23rd Jun '11 7:51:19 AM by Raso

I don't think that we need male counterpats for all of them, White-Haired Pretty Boy is the only one that is associated with anything at all, and maybe long blonde, that is also Bishōnen, but otherwise, black, dark blue, dark green, and brown hair for males are all just "default" generic, used interchargibly.

The rest of the colors, like Rose Haired Boy, or Purple Haired Boy are so rare, that they can fit on the girl pages as Gender Inverted Examples.

edited 23rd Jun '11 9:26:22 AM by EternalSeptember

Still there are a lot of various colors.

Let's see main ones would be

• Orange (kinda usually connected to Fiery Red Head but still different like Rose Haired Girl.) ,
• Green,
• Purple (sometimes literal Shrinking Violet.) ,
• not old age gray
• Cherry Red

edited 23rd Jun '11 9:49:47 AM by Raso

But there's no black at all. It really does seem to be a rarer hair colour once you let in any hair colour.

Huh? Oh the Hair Colors pic. Actually there are 1 in there (out of 31) one is Shiny Midnight Black but it comes off looking a little blue. Adaptation Dye-Job at it's best. (the manga is at like 8 out of 31 black.)

In Digital Devil Saga someone with black hair showing up in a You Gotta Have Blue Hair world is a plot point

edited 29th Jun '11 2:06:35 PM by Raso

Dark Blue and Dark Purple-haired girls (especially with long hair) often tend to be The Ojou, as well as black haired girls in a setting where unnatural colors are common

I think Shy Blue-Haired Girl is a pretty popular trope TBH. Some of it might be due to the fact that it's one of the easiest ways to make Expy of Rei. Damn, if we collect all the expies of Rei, we could have another trop (no sarcasm).

It's in YKTTW right now.

Yeah, I was already talking about this in the OP, as the "specific robotic/Kuudere/Emotionless behavior that is really strongly associated with a certain short, pale-blue hairstyle"

The problem is, that this also only barely covered by the current trope, as these girls aren't exactly "shy" as much as emotionless. The supposed point behind the trope isn't about that kind of behavior.

If the trope would be Blue Haired Girl, we could list them with the rest, and also separate them as a subtrope,(that other than the hair color, the speech style, movement, and the body type,) but right now, it only incorrectly brings them up.

This is because actual "shy" girls on their own, don't have the same, direct, almost obigatory connection with the color, that's why the trope is trying to shoehorn everything similar.

As I said, redheads are directly connected to being fiery, and blondes are to being dumb, but pink hair can mean more than cheerfulness, and blue can mean more than shyness.

edited 24th Jun '11 2:52:19 AM by EternalSeptember

The reason there aren't many black haired characters is because Purple Is the New Black. Black is very difficult to animate properly, so animators use blue or purple instead, even if the characters hair color was originally black in the manga or light novel or whatever to was adapted from.

I'm sort of rethinking my violet hair trope in YKTTW, because I realized it's basically Tall, Dark and Bishoujo via Purple Is the New Black.

edited 2nd Aug '11 10:37:12 PM by NoirGrimoir

???

There are two complaints here. The first is that the trope description is not really about being shy, but rather generically described. Look at the trope it's obvious the intent was to be about shy girls, but it written up with the error of including common yet optional add-on to the personality as alternatives to the required elements. (ie Often the shy girl is shown as a bookworm).

I have fixed this by rewriting it and putting all the optional variants in the following paragraph.

The second complaint is that there are lots of shy black haired girls. This is faulty logic.

The trope statement is essentially: "Blue hair is associated with a shy, passive personality."

From my experience that is true.

How do examples of black haired girls that are shy disprove the above statement? They have nothing to do with it. Trying to claim that they do is faulty logic.

If you wish to prove the claim of the trope false it is necessary to show examples of blue haired girls that are not shy or passive. There are some such examples. Konata for example.

Can't think of another off the top of my head. However, my experience is that blue hair is usually associated with being more passive. Probably because of the Red Oni, Blue Oni appeal (as noted in the trope).

edited 21st Aug '11 6:35:10 PM by Sackett

Save for, like, four examples from Western Animation, this trope only exists to showcase media from or influenced by Japan. Even if you disagree with me on that, this trope is just, "Shrinking Violet, but with Blue Hair!"

Yes it's Shrinking Violet with Blue Hair. What makes it a trope is that they are linked to the point that if a Blue Haired character shows up, it's a subversion if they don't turn out to be shy.

That's for a few reasons:

1: Blue hair is far more common in Japanese animation then it is in Western animation. This is for historical reasons that are not actually that important.

2: The association of girls with blue hair being shy is mainly a result of the popularity of Sailor Mercury from the Japanese anime Sailor Moon.

How exactly does that make this any less of a trope? Also, is there a problem with having a trope that is primarily found in Japanese works?

edited 21st Aug '11 6:34:38 PM by Sackett

I don't think it is really a trope. And even if it is, it badly needs clean up. Most of the examples I know are wrong, which random girls who have none of the personality requirements.

It's only a trope in Japanese works. It is not a trope in Western works. It may happen at random in Western works, but it's not a trope there. It's culture specific but that doesn't make it less of a trope.

The description was written poorly in a confusing fashion that led to the addition of any and all blue haired characters.

I fixed that, but I bet it needs a clean up of bad examples.