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Robot Hair

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You should see how she brushes that thing.

"I gave you hair! (ROBOTIC HAAAAIR)"
The Megas, "The message from Dr Light"

Robots are curious beings. They may vary in lifestyle, behavior, design, intelligence... even gender. Indeed, they come in a myriad of ways. But a particularly curious thing about them, humanoid ones in particular, is that no matter where they come from, no matter how they appear, they may have some form of a trait found most commonly on mammals. By which we mean... hair.

The hair in question could be a wig made to resemble normal human hair (or at least attempt to) or it could just be a series of mechanical parts (functional or not) which resemble a hairstyle. Either way, (as with Alien Hair and Non-Mammalian Hair), the main purpose of this trope is to show the audience a humanlike robot either by making it seem more human (since hair on the head is a very specifically human trait, especially for entities that are meant to appear female), or by emphasising a more human-like robot's mechanical nature (by making the "hair" look stiff and unnatural or having an Implausible Hair Color). A variation of the latter often appears in theatre and low budget live-action movies with android characters; the actor's hair is fixed with hairspray and a combination of careful trimming and makeup is applied around the hairline (so there's a clear line) to make it look synthetic.

Only list animal examples which clearly have parts designed to resemble a particular feature, like a mane. Cyborgs also count, but only list examples with hair that is actually synthetic (rather than their original hair). Robots and cyborgs who are indistinguishable from normal humans shouldn't be listed unless their hair fits the "makes them look artificial" variation. Humongous Mecha which have styles resembling their pilots' also merit a mention.

A common feature of any Fembot (for which it can serve as Tertiary Sexual Characteristics) and more or less mandatory for a Robot Girl, although masculine robots are not exempt. A Robot Me will have this trope by necessity (unless it's a copy of someone bald, of course). Naturally, other Hair Tropes can be applied to the "hair".

Compare Weird Beard and Sci-Fi Bob Haircut. Sister trope to Robot Antennae.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Overman King Gainer has King Gainer, the only mech with hair. It's even called "The Overman with hair" in-series.
  • Eriya and Neriya's guymelefs, Teiring, in The Vision of Escaflowne. Each has hair in the same colour and style of their pilots'.
  • The Nadleeh Gundam in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 has long red cables of some sort at the back of its head, which move around like long hair. It resembles a longer version of its pilot, Tieria Erde's, hair.
  • Chachamaru of Negima! Magister Negi Magi has hair which is pastel green. It's a synthetic material which functions as her heat sink, but only the color visually distinguishes it from normal hair. Because it is her heat sink, though, she can't tie it up in alternate hairstyles, since that would interfere with the heat dissipation.
  • The Genesic GaoGaiGar has big red hair of the synthetic variety. Each strand is actually the same as the battery "braids" Guy wears with his armor that power his Super Mode. Galeon himself's normal form is a Lion with a mechanical mane facsimile.
  • Full Metal Panic!: Several Lambda Driver-equipped Arm Slaves have long flowing hair which actually serves as heat sink for the Driver. This includes Gauron's Codarl and Sosuke's final upgrade, the Laevatein.
  • Drossel from Fireball has absolutely gigantic pigtails. They can transform into a rocket engine to enable her to fly.
  • The Operator androids in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Real Drive all have synthetic hair to help them closer resemble humans. People who opt to switch over to prosthetic bodies also have bio-synthetic hair, even though they're now cyborgs instead of being complete robots. In the later category, The Major is unusual for selecting an unnatural colour for her hair.

    Asian Animation 
  • Some of the generic robot citizens in Happy Heroes have full heads of hair. In addition, Season 5 episode 4 is about them experiencing rapid facial hair growth after Big M. mixes a facial hair-growing formula into a lotion.

    Comic Books 
  • Skydolls in Sky Doll have a bald heads, with helmet-like, very synthetic, wigs (some of which resemble normal hair and some which don't).
  • In Joss Whedon's run on X-Men, the Danger Room developed sapience and (after creating a body from an old Sentinel) became Danger. "She" has cables coming out of the back of her head that resemble hair.
  • Jocasta from The Avengers. She's a robotic copy of Janet Van Dyne, and thus has a head shaped like her hairstyle.
  • Platinum from Metal Men is the only Fembot of the six Chrome Champion robots and, naturally, is the only one with "hair". In the New 52 incarnation, Gold is reimagined as a self-aggrandizing narcissist, and so has stylish, wavy "hair"; Platinum still has hers, don't worry.
  • Sung "Girl One" Li of Top 10. She can control its color and project patterns on her hair (and on her body).
  • Warlock from the New Mutants was technically a "techno-organic" alien, but his cable hair fits this trope in spirit. His own series saw his appearance change to a more humanoid form.
  • In the Mega Man (Archie Comics) series, Doctor Light calms down a distraught Mega Man, in a conversation that is almost a word-for-word quote from the refrain of The Megas song The Message from Doctor Light, which includes a reference to Rock's hair.
  • Samuel "Starr" Saxon, the Machinesmith, had Big Ol' Eyebrows and mutton chops that become spikes on his robot body.
  • In Chassis, Tommy Tropic's Fembot chauffer Caddie has 'hair' of what appears to be black lacquer resembling a '20s Bob Haircut: very much in keeping with the Art Deco aesthetic of the book.

    Fan Works 
  • In addition to her entry under "Video Games" below, Fairy Leviathan in Manehattan's Lone Guardian is eventually revealed to have frizzy ocean blue-and-white hair after she's finally convinced to remove her helmet. One character wonders how much work went into making it, citing the average number of hairs on one's head.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Justified with the PICAs in David Weber's Safehold novels. They are built to be a perfect replica of a specific human being. The hair is usually "grown" from ingested organic materials (i.e. food that the PICA "eats").
  • Some of the more human-like robots (including Freya the protagonist) in Saturn's Children by Charles Stross have hair.
  • Franny's Franbots in the Franny K. Stein book The Fran With Four Brains have triangular pigtails to mimic Franny's hair.
  • Various kinds are displayed by the titular Clockwork Cherubs of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids depending on the model. Mark 1s like the Colonel have an inverted metal bowl with ridges on the side, of a darker colour than their "skin", giving the vague appearance of a bowl cut, though it can also look reminiscent of a WWI helmet; later models including Juliet, Marksmanship, Edwin and Pessimist have actual hair made of metal wire, in various colours including golden, silver, electric-blue, and black. A few including Mandragora and Zaroff even have beards, though this doesn't seem to be standard for any Mark.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Ambassador Magma: Magma/Goldar is a "living giant" forged from gold with long gold hair. His normal-sized, human-looking wife and son are also behaired, but it's less unusual on them.
  • Kryten (previously bald) dons a toupée in the last episode of Red Dwarf VI.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation has Data, and his brothers, who are androids designed to be superficially similar to human beings in many ways. Their hair is made to look artificial by heavy application of gel, and keeping Brent Spiner's hairline sharply trimmed.
  • In the Doctor Who story "The Robots of Death", the robots have hair that resembles wavy, combed-back male hair with a widow's peak, as a solid block as part of the stylized head. (The general aesthetic of the robots is Raygun Gothic and they borrow heavily from art deco sculpture.) Notable in that when Taren Capel reveals his identity to the Doctor, he has actually waved and styled his hair in such a way as to resemble the robot hair.
  • Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger: Gaon has a bunch of cables which resemble dreadlocks, and Magine has a single cable which looks like a ponytail.

    Music 
  • The Megas called attention to this rather memorably in "The Message from Dr. Light":
    Dr. Light: I gave you hair! (ROBOTIC HAIR!)

    Toys 
  • Transformers:
    • Arcee, the go-to Fembot, generally has a helmet-like structure on her head which resembles Princess Leia's famous hair buns.
    • Windblade has hair resembling a geisha's, complete with a large "hair clip".
    • Elita One used to have a ponytail-like shape on her helm in her past identity as Ariel.
    • Solus Prime, one of the Thirteen, has a long mass of metal hair-like appendages coming out of her head.
    • Rarely, Transformers can have facial hair, sometimes as an indicator of old age or evilness. In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Minimus Ambus goes so far as to have his intermediate armour, which puts him up to the size of someone like Rodimus, wear a fake moustache to mimic the real one on his inner body. At one point a panicking Nautica hits him with her wrench and it comes off.

    Video Games 
  • Fulgore in Killer Instinct is a robot who has a red/brown, ponytail-like protrusion coming from the back of his head.
  • The Lin Kuei robots in Mortal Kombat had a set of cables on the back of their heads which resembled pony tails.
  • Most reploids from the Mega Man series (although the eponymous character hides his under his helmet most of the time). Mega Man ZX justifies the trope by explicitly saying it was an attempt to "making humans and reploids closer to each other to make better peace":
  • Metallic Child: Rona, along with several other Metallic Children, have very human-looking hair. Rona's is white, with others come in varying shades.
  • Emeralda in Xenogears. Of course, since she's entirely made of nanomachines, it sort of makes sense that she can make them into hair if she wants to. She also uses it as a weapon in some of her attacks.
  • In BlazBlue Nirvana has a crest on "her" head in the shape of her hair when she was still Ada Clover. Occasional joke character Mecha Tao has a metal version of Taokaka's hair. The Prime Field Devices including Noel Vermilion all have normal looking blonde hair (although it's not stated if they're Ridiculously Human Robots or Artificial Humans).
  • In Cave Story, both the protagonist and Curly Brace respectively have black and blonde hair, making them stand out from other, less humanoid robots.
  • Candy Diamond, Kula's "sister" from The King of Fighters 2000, slides from one type into the other. In her intro with Kula, she's shown to have regular hair, but then sheds her disguise to reveal her true robotic form, which has metallic hair.
  • In Mass Effect 3, EDI's robot body sports a bob made out of steel. When it was masquerading as Dr. Eva Core, is was most likely made out of synthetic fibers that were burned away in the explosion. Notably, while it looks solid, it can be switched to a mass of hair-like fibres, making it both variations of the trope at once.
    EDI: ...and when it gets wet, I can't do anything with it!
  • In Fallout 3, there is a side-quest to retrieve the Declaration of Independence. In it, you will eventually encounter a Protectron that due to a malfunction believes himself to be the real Button Gwinnett and wears a powdered wig.
  • Scrapland's main character D-Tritus has hair made of optical fibers, tied in a tuft in the back of his neck. There's also Betty with a thick piece of purple metal over her head and face, designed to look like a bob cut with a bang over her eye.
  • Rising Thunder:
    • Chel has linked metal plates coming out the back of its head that look like locks of purple hair.
    • Edge has green Flaming Hair coming out of an exhaust port on the back of its head.
  • The Fembot hooker in Jazzpunk has what may be either a wig or simply a head shaped like a head with hair; the whole game is too stylized to tell.
  • In League of Legends, Lissandra and Soraka's "Program" skins give them masses of wire for hair.
  • Mettaton's EX form in Undertale has bangs concealing the unfinished right side of his face.
    • Mettaton EX's Underswap counterpart Napstabot has a head of feathered hair. Unlike Mettaton his hair doesn't cover his face and is white instead of black.
  • In Overwatch, Widowmaker's Noire skin has what appear to be cables and connection ports coming off her head and Ramattra has a set of ribbon cables about his head that resembles dreadlocks.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: After two bodies with metallic protrusions that merely look like hair, Poppi QTπ has realistic, but apparently synthetic hair.
  • In Speed Kills, a robotic race contestant has a mass of long, purple tubes extending from her head which approximately resemble (unusual) hair.
  • Kit from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has two lightbulbs on her head that resemble Odango Hair, in contrast to her dimensional counterpart Clank's single antenna.
  • Robot Butler Fred from Kukoo Kitchen has two long purple appendages protruding from a tube above his mouth screen, which are designed to resemble a long, twirling mustache.

    Web Comics 
  • Homestuck:
    • Jade Harley, Dirk Strider, and Andrew Hussie all have robots of themselves complete with matching hair that appear to be carved/shaped out of the same metal used for the body.
    • Aradia Megido's soulbot has synthetic hair that is the same long, curly hairstyle that she had when she was alive.
    • The herd of robotic Maplehoofs have the same mane as their living counterpart.
  • Doris in Val and Isaac has an "artificial substance that mimics hair". Minnow approves.

    Web Videos 
  • KARA has a Ridiculously Human Robot who is designed to appear human in just about every way, including a head of short brown hair (which is seen being installed on her significantly more obviously mechanical-at first-body).

    Western Animation 

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