History Main / ImplausibleHairColor

* Chris Griffin of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' has blond hair, despite the fact that his father's hair is brown and his mother's a redhead. None of his grandparents have blond hair either. His hair probably stems from the original design for his mother Lois, who was a blonde until they changed it.

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This trope sometimes contriblutes to InformedSpecies if the implausible coloration takes away from a species hallmark characteristics enough.

* ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'' has Hitomi Kanzaki, who has light brown hair and green eyes.
* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'', the redheaded ronin from 19th century Japan. Though redheads ''are'' known to exist naturally in Japan (like [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/74758569@N00/2925337905/ this boy]]), they're still incredibly rare. This is lampshaded in the first episode where one of the characters identifies Kenshin as the Battosai because of his red hair and the scar on his cheek.

* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' would fit into plausible hair, except that one of ThoseTwoGuys is blond. Aside from him, all characters in either have black hair or are goddesses or, in a few cases, both. Considering that one guy is the one human who has blond hair, it's pretty close to actual Japanese demographics. (He's also a leather-and-shades-wearing punk biker with spark plugs for earrings; it's likely that he bleaches it -- see the notes for ''Manga/MidoriDays'' below.)

* Allen Walker of ''Manga/DGrayMan'' has naturally white hair. However, this is justified as it's the result of intense psychological trauma, his original hair color being brown.
* ''Manga/AngelicLayer'' has a few blondes here and there amongst the black and brown. (The outrageous hair colours are reserved for the Angels, who are all robots.)
* Tamaki, Renge, and Honey from ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' all have blond hair, and the Hitachiin twins are both redheads. Tamaki and Renge are half-French, which is used as kind of a justification seeing as Tamaki inherited his blonde hair from his mother. Except that blonde hair is a recessive trait and naturally blonde hair is very rare in France too.
* Mai and Ayako from ''Manga/GhostHunt'' are redheads, while Takigawa has brown hair. (John Brown is Australian and blond.) It is implied, at least in Mai's case, that she dyed her hair.
* ''Manga/MidoriDays'' has plausible brown or black for all characters except the leads, blond Seiji and green-headed Midori. However, Seiji having brown hair in flashbacks implies that he dyes it, leaving Midori the only character with an impossible hair colour. Her real body has hair a darker shade of green. (By the way, the Japanese word for green is "[[MeaningfulName midori]]".) Seiji may be a [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18567_6-japanese-subcultures-that-are-insane-even-japan_p2.html yankii]]. Anyway, in many anime, having blond hair for a male Japanese character would be a short cut to saying "[[DelinquentHair This guy here is a delinquent!]]"

* ''Manga/UltraManiac'' has a few people with blonde hair. Nina is justified because [[ItWasHisSled she's a witch]], but on normal people, it's a bit jarring.
* The characters in ''Manga/{{X 1999}}'' all have fairly typical black or brown hair, but Kotori and her mother both have inexplicable wavy blonde hair.

* Akagi Shigeru of ''Manga/{{Akagi}}'' and his body-double Hirayama Yukio both have silvery gray hair, despite being fairly young. No one in the series thinks it's strange at all.
* The manga, TV series, and video game adaptations of ''Manga/{{Area 88}}'' give Shin blonde hair for no readily apparent reason, even though he's seemingly 100% ethnically Japanese. (Although the 2004 series shows he was raised in a Catholic Church-run orphanage, so some mixed ancestry is not impossible.) Ryoko also has pink hair in the OVA and TV series, while Taeko has red hair in the OVA.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'':
** Near's hair is snow-white. There's no particular reason to believe he's Japanese, as his real name is the Western-sounding [[spoiler:Nate River]], but it's not substantially more plausible for a Westerner. Fan theory states that he's albino, which could theoretically make him Japanese.
* ''Anime/PrettyCure'':

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': About half of the main cast falls under this trope to some degree, a smaller number have completely plausible hair colors, and a few have colors that do not occur anywhere in nature.
** Orange hair: The manga describes Ichigo's hair as [[AllThereInTheManual 'honey']] and Orihime's as 'caramel'; in the anime, [[AdaptationDyeJob both have an unnaturally bright shade of orange]]. This is a point of characterization as most people assume that Ichigo is a delinquent who bleaches his hair, and Orihime was bullied as a child because her relatively light hair color made her stick out.
** Blond hair: Urahara and Kira are both naturally blond. Yuzu's hair color is golden in the manga (a darker mustard shade in the anime). Yukio's is justified on the grounds that he's part-European. Rangiku and Kiyone are blonde-haired in the manga, but red-blonde in the anime. Harribel takes the implausibility the furthest, as a dark-skinned blond.
** Brown hair: Aizen, Masaki, Keigo, and Starrk all have relatively light brown hair. Chizuru has mahogany brown hair in the manga (unnatural red in the anime). Sado's hair color is justified on the grounds that he's part Mexican. Starrk may also get a pass as it's never really made clear just what race he or any of the other arrancar are supposed to be.
** White hair unrelated to aging: Gin, [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] with his name, meaning silver. [[AnIcePerson Hitsugaya's]] indicates his elemental powers. Isane and Kensei have silver hair. Ukitake's natural brown hair [[DiseaseBleach turned white due to illness]] in early childhood. In the manga, Ryuuken had white hair even as a child. The anime gives him dark brown hair in flashback, creating a different kind of implausibility (since it implies his hair went completely white in less than 6 years).
* ''Manga/SoulEater'' has a variety of hair colours ranging from the implausible to the impossible. An example of the former would be Maka's hair, in that her mother is suggested to be Japanese and her father has bright red hair (worth noting that the other Japanese women do have black hair). Maka's own hair is more a light brown or blonde.

* In ''Anime/KnightHunters'', Aya's hair is ''bright red'', and Youji and Omi are both blond. Flashbacks indicate that Aya and Omi's hair colors are most likely natural (and their other family members are all dark-haired). Youji is half-French, although this isn't brought up in the anime itself. Omi remains without an excuse, though.
* Revy from ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' has has purplish-black hair. Hair dye may be involved.
* Almost every character in ''Manga/{{Saiyuki}}''. The ostensibly Chinese characters have a rainbow of hair colors (although at least with the youkai characters they aren't bound by the same physical rules as humans). The Westerner who ''could'' plausibly be blond has ''silver'' hair despite being 19.
* Sage/Seiji Date in ''Anime/RoninWarriors'' is blond yet [[AllThereInTheManual explained to be from the prominent Japanese Samurai family]] of UsefulNotes/DateMasamune.

* Mariko from ''Manga/ElfenLied'' has blonde hair in the manga, despite both her parents being Japanese with realistic hair colors. This is partially justified, as Mariko is of a completely different species.
* ''Manga/Eyeshield21'': For all its wackiness, is actually pretty good about hair colors. Most of the cast either has brown or black hair, and those who don't clearly dye their hair (they all have black eye brows). However, there are still a few exceptions in the cast; most notably, Taka's been a white-haired pretty boy since childhood, Agon was light-haired as a child, and Sakuraba's hair ranges from light brown to blonde. Given Sakuraba's status as an idol, it's probable that he was forced to dye it.
* Although the artist of ''Manga/LiarGame'' hasn't actually picked a hair color for Akiyama, he is always drawn with his hair ranging from a light reddish-brown to ginger to gold. Despite being Japanese.
* While the other team members in ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' all have brown hair, Jun is the odd one out with long deep green hair. This could be chalked up to HairColorDissonance in the original series (as colorists sometimes made it more on the black or brown side), but the sequels and most modern artwork and merchandise make her hair a blatant emerald green shade.
* ''Manga/OokuTheInnerChambers'': Gosaku can't hide his mixed Dutch-Japanese heritage because he inherited his father's wavy blond hair.
* Largely subverted in ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'', as nearly all pureblood humans have black hair. Played straight with most {{youkai}} and [[HalfHumanHybrid hanyou]] characters.

* Shōyō Hinata, the main character of ''Manga/{{Haikyuu}}'', has bright orange hair and stands out amongst the predominantly brunet and raven-haired cast. Unlike other characters in the series his hair seems natural (most likely a stylized medium-tone brown), as his little sister has the same tone.

* Atsuko from ''Anime/MichikoAndHatchin'' is a black woman with a blonde afro. While not impossible it's very rare.
* Everyone in ''Manga/Life2002'' has black hair except for Hatori and Manami, who are blondes. This is never explained but, considering that Hatori is a [[JapaneseDelinquents delinquent]] and Manami is a fashionable popular girl, they both probably bleached their hair. The LiveActionAdaptation [[AdaptationDyeJob darkens their hair]].
* Rin from ''Manga/BunnyDrop'' is the only character with blonde hair. Not even her parents have blonde hair. [[spoiler:Considering the reveal late in the series that Rin is not biologically Daikichi's grandfather's daughter, it could be considered {{foreshadowing}}. She might be [[PhenotypeStereotype biracial]].]]
* In ''Manga/Brave10'', there are three redheads running around: Benmaru, Kamanosuke and Hanzo. Not exactly the most common hair colour in 16th century Japan.
* Chise Hatori of ''Manga/TheAncientMagusBride'' is a Japanese girl with bright red hair and green eyes, which along with her natural magical abilities has led fans to speculate she's not entirely human.
* Despite being set in Japan and being overall realistic, ''Manga/{{Gamaran}}'' has several characters with unusual hair colors, which includes Gama (greyish-indigo hair WordOfGod implies got from his MissingMom), his father Jinsuke (white hair since youth), the Ichinose Clan (bright red hair), Daimaru Sakon (white), Saizo (''green''), Kiyomori (blonde). The only justified example so far are the members of Rintaro's family, since they're all Dutch or half-dutch, thus their hair color is slightly more justified.

* Urumi Kanzaki from ''Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka'' has blond hair and mismatched eyes (one blue and one brown). Justified as her being [[ButNotTooForeign half-Japanese and half-(white) American]]. The characters Jun and Kaoru Kamata, and their friend Natsu, from ''Manga/GTOTheEarlyYears'' are also blond-haired ''hafu'', though Jun and Natsu are delinquents, for whom dyed hair wouldn't be unusual.
* In ''Manga/UzakiChanWantsToHangOut'', Hana, her siblings Yanagi and Kiri, and their mother Tsuki all have grey hair. Tsuki is only 43, and [[MumLooksLikeASister looks much younger]].

* In ''Webcomic/KillLaKillAU'', we have a six-year old Ragyo's hair, which is blonde. Both of her parents have black hair, however, this is a tad excusable in that Amoridere isn't sure what hair color Ragyo would have had as a child, pre-life fibers, and figured it would have been either black (like [[spoiler:Ryuuko]] and Satsuki's) or blonde ([[spoiler:like Nui's]]). Apparently, blonde hair must be a recessive gene that both of her parents have, seeing that only then one of her daughters have blond hair (then again, [[spoiler:Nui is an artificial human who has some of her mother's genes as a basis]]) and both of her other daughters have black hair.

* In the epilogue of ''Fanfic/SonOfTheSannin'', Naruto and Hinata are shown to have an infant daughter who inherited her paternal grandmother's red hair, something that is noted as being strange in-universe (not to mention impossible in real life since her mother's side of the family only has shades black, brown, and blue).

* Violet Parr from ''Franchise/TheIncredibles'' has long raven black hair while both her father and younger brother have blonde hair and her mother has auburn hair. Because dark genes are dominant she should have had brown hair at the darkest. However, considering her gloomy personality, it is possible that she wanted to dye it black. The Parrs/Incredibles have hereditary superpowers, so it's possible that genetics aren't quite the same for them, and Violet's hair is natural.

* In ''Literature/ProjectNRI'', artistic license gives Takasawa Juuri purple hair. The same goes for Kumoki Ame who has pink hair, and Yami Hikari who has green hair.
* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', the three children of King Robert Baratheon all have blond hair, even though Robert is dark-haired and every other child ever born to a Baratheon and Lannister (all of the Lannisters are blond, including Robert's wife Cersei) has had dark hair. [[spoiler:The children are later revealed to actually be the offspring of the queen's brother Jaime. Cersei hated her husband and hardly ever slept with him, but had carried on [[{{twincest}} a sexual relationship with her twin]] from childhood.]]

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Many characters have pelt colours that aren't plausible or even possible for actual cats. For example, male tortoiseshells are [[AnimalGenderbender very rare]] yet Redtail and Sol exist, and in the former's case he sired kits despite male torties usually being sterile. Blackstar, Lionblaze, Mistyfoot, Ivypool, Graystripe, Brambleclaw, Sandstorm, and Mothwing are a few of the cats who have pelt colours and patterns that are genetically inaccurate.
* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'': Mikuru is a redhead, possibly as a clue that she's from [[TimeTravel a time in the future]] when Japanese people with naturally bright red hair apparently exist. Tsuruya's long green hair is still a mystery, but it's possible that it could be a stylized black hair.

* Misty and Lorelei from ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' stand out with their red hair. Most other characters in the games either have black hair, brown hair, or [[HairColorDissonance stylized colours]] that resemble those colours. The exception is Lt. Surge, a blond but explicitly American character. Being naturally red haired and Japanese is possible, but rare. Future ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games give characters whatever hair colors they please.
* More common than not in the modern ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' games. Only three major characters (Makoto Yuki, Fuuka, and Naoto) have truly impossible hair (Dark blue, teal, and dark blue again, respectively); but Mitsuru, Chidori, Rise, and Futaba have red hair, Akihiko, Takaya, and Yu have white or grey hair, Ken, Yosuke, Chie, Haru, and Akechi have light brown hair, and Aigis, Kanji, Teddie, Ryuji, and Ann have blond hair (Although Aigis and Teddie aren't human, Kanji and Ryuji are explicitly dyed - with Kanji's natural color being black - and Ann has it explained as being 1/4 American). Even Koromaru the dog, an albino, is unusually colored. In comparison, there are only eight characters (Junpei, Metis, Jin, Adachi, Yukiko, Joker, Makoto Niijima, and Yusuke) with black hair and one (Shinjiro) with dark brown.

* Blonde blue-eyed Chinese women aren't exactly common but that's what Wei Wei from ''Webcomic/{{Beloved}}'' looks like. In comparison, everyone else is dark eyed and dark haired.

* In the ''Life With Loopy'' shorts on ''WesternAnimation/KaBlam'', Loopy has blue hair while her mom is a blonde and her dad and brother are redheads. And according to a few old photos seen in "Send In The Clones", it's natural.
* Terry and Matt [=McGinnis=] in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' both have black hair despite the fact that their parents are redheads. Justified in that it's later revealed that [[spoiler:Bruce Wayne is their biological father]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', the women in the Lee family gain bright vermillion hair when their shape-shifting powers are awakened. Red hair is possible among people of Chinese descent but it is found only within a specific ethnic minority.

* In ''Anime/WeissKreuz'', Aya's hair is ''bright red'', and Youji and Omi are both blond. Flashbacks indicate that Aya and Omi's hair colors are most likely natural (and their other family members are all dark-haired). Youji is half-French, although this isn't brought up in the anime itself. Omi remains without an excuse, though.

* Largely subverted in ''Manga/{{InuYasha}}'', where nearly all pureblood humans have black hair. Played straight with most {{youkai}} and [[HalfHumanHybrid hanyou]] characters.

* ''Literature/{{No 6}}'''s [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Sion/Shion]], whose originally brown hair was changed to a stark white [[spoiler: due the trauma of almost dying from a parasitic bee's attack.]]

* In ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'', the human characters have brown or black hair (realistic colors for Japanese people) while the alien characters have unusual colors (Nyarko's is silver, Cuuko's is [[FieryRedhead red]], Hasta's is yellow).

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', the women in the Lee family gain bright vermillion hair when their red panda is awakened. Red hair is possible among people of Chinese descent but it is found only within a specific ethnic minority.

* Violet Parr from ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' has long raven black hair while both her father and younger brother have blonde hair and her mother has auburn hair. Because dark genes are dominant she should have had brown hair at the darkest. However, considering her gloomy personality, it is possible that she wanted to dye it black. The Parrs/Incredibles have hereditary superpowers, so it's possible that genetics aren't quite the same for them, and Violet's hair is natural.

* Red or blond hair is more common than many Westerners think among South and Central Asian peoples, like the Kalash, Nuristanis, Tajiks, [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/29126736@N08/2842452790 Uyghurs]], [[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1am7ya/a_blonde_mongolian_girl/ and Mongols]] (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan himself was supposedly a green-eyed redhead, but there isn't any evidence to suggest this was the case). Light-coloured hair also naturally occurs in Middle Eastern and North African populations, like the Kurds and Berbers. It's worth noting that similar to the South Pacific case, non-European Eurasian blondness is more common among the young.

* Red or blond hair is more common than many Westerners think among South and Central Asian peoples, like the Kalash, Nuristanis, Tajiks, [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/29126736@N08/2842452790 Uyghurs]], [[http://pastmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blond-mongol-girl.jpg and Mongols]] (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan himself was said to have been a green-eyed redhead). Light-coloured hair also naturally occurs in Middle Eastern and North African populations, like the Kurds and Berbers. It's worth noting that similar to the South Pacific case, non-European Eurasian blondness is more common among the young.

Frequently overlaps with {{Mukokuseki}}.

See HollywoodGenetics when a person has a hair color that is different than their biological family.

* The same goes for ''LightNovel/{{No 6}}'''s [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Sion/Shion]], whose originally brown hair was changed to a stark white [[spoiler: due the trauma of almost dying from a parasitic bee's attack.]]

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' has all but ''one'' character that keeps it away from probable hair colors (very few have black hair, but most of the cast is either American or European) -- Sylvie Lumiere. She's mentioned to be silver-haired [[AllThereInTheManual in the books too]], so we can't even claim that she's a stylized blond.

* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'': Mikuru is a redhead, possibly as a clue that she's from [[TimeTravel a time in the future]] when Japanese people with naturally bright red hair apparently exist. Tsuruya's long green hair is still a mystery, but it's possible that it could be a stylized black hair.

* In ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'', the human characters have brown or black hair (realistic colors for Japanese people) while the alien characters have unusual colors (Nyarko's is silver, Cuuko's is [[FieryRedhead red]], Hasta's is yellow).

* In ''[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire A Song Of Ice And Fire]]'', the three children of King Robert Baratheon all have blond hair, even though Robert is dark-haired and every other child ever born to a Baratheon and Lannister (all of the Lannisters are blond, including Robert's wife Cersei) has had dark hair. [[spoiler:The children are later revealed to actually be the offspring of the queen's brother Jaime. Cersei hated her husband and hardly ever slept with him, but had carried on [[{{twincest}} a sexual relationship with her twin]] from childhood.]]

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* In the ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022905/chapters/45177640 Is the Line From Me to You]]'' has Yoshikage Kira lampshades the fact that he and Koichi Hirose are both blonde despite being Japanese. He even wonders if there had been a population of Europeans that settled Morioh and were never recorded, which would explain why such a rare hair color exists.

* In the ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'' fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022905/chapters/45177640 Is the Line From Me to You]]'' has Yoshikage Kira lampshades the fact that he and Koichi Hirose are both blonde despite being Japanese. He even wonders if there had been a population of Europeans that settled Morioh and were never recorded, which would explain why such a rare hair color exists.

This trope in regards to human hair colors shows up more in East Asian works, where hair colors other than black or dark brown are rarest. This is by no means limited to that part of the world. The DarkSkinnedBlond and DarkSkinnedRedhead are good examples.

** Blond hair: Urahara and Kira are both naturally blond. Yuzu's hair color is golden in the manga (a darker mustard shade in the anime). Yukio's is justified on the grounds that he's part-European. Rangiku and Kiyone are blonde-haired in the manga, but red-blonde in the anime. Harribel takes the implausibility the furthest, as a DarkSkinnedBlond.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'': Mikuru is a bright redhead, possibly as a clue that she's from [[TimeTravel a time in the future]] when Japanese people with naturally bright red hair apparently exist. Tsuruya's long green hair is still a mystery, but it's possible that it could be a stylized black hair.

* Pretty much all the main characters of ''Webcomic/{{Megatokyo}}''. This is tricky to spot because nearly all the strips are black-and-white, but you can see it in the rare coloured strips and book covers. Kimiko has a light-brown-blonde colour. Erika's hair is orange-red. Miho's hair is purple, but given [[DarkMagicalGirl who]] [[MindScrew she]] [[IllGirl is]], it may not be natural.

Some types of implausible colorations, such as green eyes, red hair, [[SignificantGreenEyedRedhead red hair and green eyes]], and ivory skintones in humans, and truly white fur with pale or pink skin in horses, are far more common in fiction than in real life. Some overlap with AnimalGenderBender, like male calico cats, and some overlap with TypicalCartoonAnimalColors, like brown gorillas.

[[caption-width-right:299:[[SubvertedTrope He's not wearing dye]], he just has a cool TYRP1 mutation.]]

* A blond-haired missionary staying with a remote tribe is summoned by the angry chieftain, who demands to know why his third wife just gave birth to a child with pale hair like the missionary. The missionary explains that it sometimes happens in nature, such as the one black-wooled sheep in the chieftain's flock. The chieftain looks around for a moment and says he'll keep quiet about the kid if the missionary will keep quiet about the sheep.

* ''Manga/{{Ooku}}'': Gosaku can't hide his mixed Dutch-Japanese heritage because he inherited his father's wavy blond hair.

* ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' has Chiyo, who is a redhead despite being Japanese like every other character in the series (with the majority of the cast having black or brown hair). Natural Japanese redheads ''do'' exist, but they are extremely rare, and no one brings attention to Chiyo's hair color even though it's something the cast should notice as outlandish, even if it is plausible. Then again, she's also a ChildProdigy who [[GradeSkipper started high school at the age of ten]], which is also extremely rare.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'': Mikuru is a bright redhead, possibly as a clue that she's from [[TimeTravel a time in the future]] when Japanese people with naturally bright red hair apparently exist. Tsuruya's green RapunzelHair is still a mystery, but it's possible that it could be a stylized black hair.

* Everyone in ''Manga/{{Life}}'' has black hair except for Hatori and Manami, who are blondes. This is never explained but, considering that Hatori is a [[JapaneseDelinquents delinquent]] and Manami is a fashionable popular girl, they both probably bleached their hair. The LiveActionAdaptation [[AdaptationDyeJob darkens their hair]].

This trope sometimes contriblutes to InformedSpecies if the implausible coloration takes away from a species hallmark characteristics enough..