Girlish Pigtails

Ironically she's a tomboy.

Also known as twin tails, handlebars, or bunches. A type of hairstyle where the hair is gathered into two "tails" on either side of the head. Usually, but not always, left loose; braided tails have a more Granola Girl or Tomboy connotation. The hair must be gathered above the top of the neck; hair gathered below the jawline generally says something entirely different about the character.

Used as a visual clue that the character is young or immature. This view may have come from the Chinese custom of unmarried women wearing their hair in two buns on either side of the head (which if combined with the twin tails yields a well-known icon). Or from the modern European custom that a grown woman wore her hair up. This can also be associated with nerd girls.

If an older woman is trying to disguise herself as a child, expect her to sport pigtails. Also can be found on an older woman if the writers want the audience to grasp that she's child-like in temperament: playful, fun, and possibly innocent. (If the character is evil, this may indicate that she is a Psychopathic Womanchild to some degree.)

Could also show up on a Little Miss Badass.

Pigtails are commonly found on Tsunderes, either full pigtails or a variation ("Tsundere Tails"), which leaves the majority of the hair down with tails on each side of the head. This may be to indicate her childish temperament: prone to physically expressing displeasure and temper tantrums; or to symbolize her dual nature (tsun-tsun/dere-dere). Twintails are one of the three parts of the ultimate Grade S Zettai Ryouiki (the other two being Grade A Zettai Ryouiki attire and Tsundere attitude).

Can be combined with Regal Ringlets, in which case they're indicative of both high social status and youth, perhaps suggesting the wearer is a spoiled child or interested in the lolita fashion scene. Another popular variation is replacement or pairing with loads and loads of hair decs.

This is a very common trope in porn to make older actresses appear younger, especially when paired with a Sexy Schoolwoman outfit.

Note that this trope is not absolute; many Girly Girls wear completely different hairstyles and this is also commonly found among many tomboyish girls (often combined with Braids of Action, as the image for the Tomboy page shows), probably to show that, despite their masculine hobbies, they may have some girly streak.

Compare Tomboyish Ponytail. Not to Be Confused with a literal meaning of "twin tails" where a creature or character (or aircraft) has two or more tails.

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Examples

Advertising

• The iconic symbol of Wendy's hamburger chain is a drawing of a young redheaded girl with such pigtails (ostensibly a depiction of Dave Thomas' daughter, whom the chain is named after).

Anime & Manga

• The Tsundere "genius" sniper of Night Raid, Mine, from Akame ga Kill!, has two massive pink twintails that are almost as long as her body.
• The title character of the '60s manga and anime Akane-chan by Tetsuya Chiba (creator of Tomorrow's Joe). It signifies that she's young, sweet and somewhat naive.
• Akazukin Chacha is a pigtailed Cute Witch and an Inept Mage to boot.
• Not only Anne but her best friend Diana has them in the 1979 Isao Takahata World Masterpiece Theater TV series of Anne of Green Gables. In Diana's case the tails are braided and worn in rings on each side of her head.
• ARIA:
  • Akari, being a classically childish character.
  • Aika has them too until she burns her hair. She is definitely more of a tsundere, though.
• Aria Kanzaki and Riko Mine from Aria the Scarlet Ammo both sport twin tails, Aria being a tsundere and Riko being straight-out immature and bratty.
  • Being a partial expy of Usagi from Sailor Moon, Meirin from Ask Dr. Rin! has Odango and twin braids.
• Asteroid in Love:
  • Ao mostly wears her blue hair in pigtails, and her personality is consistent with the quiet, demure girl type. This is also an Invocation as her Expository Hairstyle Change after she grew out of her tomboy phase.
  • Mikage wears short pigtails, signifying her role as the local Tsundere.
  • Invoked by Moe. Before her Important Haircut, she braids her hair into pigtails while working for the Suzuya Bakery, while letting it down at school, because the uniforms at Suzuya Bakery accentuates femininity.
  • Tomori from the Shining Star Challenge fits the archetype the best, being a playful, fun, energetic, and innocent girl.
• Azumanga Daioh:
  • Chiyo wears her hair this way, signifying how she's the youngest and most innocent of the cast despite her high intelligence. However, they look more like two footballs attached to her head than anything else (in the manga, her pigtails started out looking like actual hair before they gradually became more like solid shapes). Osaka sometimes wonders if they're detachable, or even alive...
  • Yomi has them in the supplementary lessons.
• Runo from Bakugan. Yep, yet another Tsundere.
• Beelzebub:
  • Shiroyama has a cute pair of pigtails, complete with bows in them. Oh, by the way, this◊ is Shiroyama.
  • Futaba and Chiyo, both of whom are four year old girls.
  • Azusa from St. Ishiyama, who's a cheerful ditz.
• Noelle from Black Clover is a haughty tsundere who wears her long silver hair in two tight twin tails, even when playing at the beach.
• In Black Lagoon, Balalaika's Start of Darkness episode "Little Soldier Girls" reveals that she wore her hair like this prior to enlisting in the Soviet Special Forces. This serves to highlight the contrast between the innocent girl that she was, and the nihilistic Blood Knight that she becomes.
• Bleach: Hiyori, Riruka, Loly, Ururu and Yuzu; the former two are Tsundere, the middle Yandere, and the latter two Kawaiiko. Ururu drops these after the first time skip and wears her hair down, while Yuzu often wears these around the same time.
• Kaho in Blend-S invokes this trope. She took up this hairstyle under the recommendation of her employer, since her position involves playing a Tsundere role in a Cosplay Café.
• The homonymous protagonist from Candy♡Candy, emphasizing her optimism and youthfulness.
• Bratty Half-Pint Meilin from Cardcaptor Sakura has Odango Hair.
• In Castle Town Dandelion, Hikari and Hana are straight examples of these, as they are a fifth-grade girl and a smitten teenager respectively. Akane is a downplayed case, as she tied her pigtails from the bottom to avoid this trope's association with girlishness.
• In Code Geass, several characters use this look at different times:
  • Most obvious is Nina Einstein, a shy wallflower whose look emphasizes her relative Generic Cuteness vs. her more buxom friends. She goes for a more mature look after things go horribly wrong, and she continues to lose her innocence.
  • Shirley also has the look occasionally, emphasizing her moe appeal, as well as wearing twin Celtic braids on occasion.
  • Nunnally also sports the same type of hairstyles as Shirley (twin pigtails in some audio dramas, and the braids near the R2 finale).
  • Although it may be overlooked, both Marianne vi Britannia and her Soul Jar, Anya Alstreim, have the version that emphasizes their girlishness. In Anya's case, the look may have been influenced by the one Marianne wore in her youth as a Knight of Rounds.
  • Alice, from Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally, also wears Girlish Pigtails. In her case, it emphasizes her tomboyish and slightly Tsundere nature as opposed to Nunnally's epic Moe. In the end, both characters cut their hair. Ironically, it makes Alice resemble her dead sister and Nunnally resemble her 7-year-old self (pre-blindness)... who wore Girlish Pigtails...
• As a little girl, Rosette from Chrono Crusade had twin braids. As she got older, she wore two pigtails at the top, but keeping the rest of her hair out and flowing, probably signifying that she's still somewhat innocent (being a nun and an idealist), but maturing into adulthood, as well. (Not to mention she's more than a little Tsundere.) In the manga's epilogue, she's shown in her twenties with the pigtails missing completely.
• Cyber Team in Akihabara:
  • Heroine Hibari is a redhead with Girlish Pigtails.
  • Hibari's teammate, Tsubame, subverts the trope a lot.
• Sakura Yoshino in Da Capo. Subverted in that she never ages, and that she permanently looks young. By Da Capo II, she is in her sixties yet she looks shorter and younger than Yume.
• Judy Abbott from the 1990 World Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Daddy-Long-Legs, which are drawn in a very Pippi Longstocking style, with both braids sticking out from her head horizontally. This is in keeping with the series' aging-down of Judy from the original novel, as the anime series has Judy entering high school whereas the novel has her entering college.
• Death Note's Misa has a pigtail-variation hairstyle. It's interesting to note that she eventually grows out of the Baby Spice look and starts wearing her hair loose and dressing in clothes that are more preppy-cute and less GothLoli, possibly in order to be taken seriously as an actress. Once she gives up her Death Note and its associated memories, she goes back to the pigtails and it seems like any maturity she might have had vanishes into thin air.
• Devil Hunter Yohko is an odd example because while her show is much Darker and Edgier (and Hotter and Sexier), Yohko herself is still a boy-crazy teenager who somewhat fits the trope.
• Somewhat subverted with Lenalee from D.Gray-Man; while she exhibits a sweet personality, she can and will mess you up if you threaten her or her friends. The twintails were later sheared off after a battle, resulting in her having Boyish Short Hair from episodes 63-103, and eventually growing that into a bob hairstyle at the end of the 2006 series and carrying it over into the 2016 series, Hallow.
• Shizuka Minamoto from Doraemon is a kind, sweet grade school girl who has this as her regular hairstyle. Noticeably, glimpses into the future show she will no longer wear pigtails as an adult.
• Videl has pigtails in her first few episodes of Dragon Ball Z. She has them cut mostly because she blackmails Gohan into training her in using his abilities and he points out that long hair is distracting for flying, much to her annoyance. (She thought he liked girls with short hair.)
• Fairy Tail:
  • Lucy's signature hairstyle used to be one ponytail at her right temple and the rest of her hair loose, but post-Time Skip, she has taken a liking to this trope and almost always has her hair in two pigtails at her backhead.
  • Wendy, who is the Token Mini-Moe of the series, regularly wears her long hair in pigtails.
• Robot Girl Drossel from Fireball has two long metal flaps attached to her head, which look suspiciously like pigtails. She is arguably the tsundere-type.
• Mikan from Gakuen Alice. Then again, she is still a very young girl.
• Tazusa from Ginban Kaleidoscope has these. Shockingly, her personality is disturbingly similar to that of a Tsundere.
• Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!! is a Super Sentai/Magical Girl Warrior parody built around this trope.
• Kirin of Gourmet Girl Graffiti wears short pigtails and is the least mature of the cast.
• Wendy Garret of GUN×SWORD sports twin braids which suspiciously resemble the mascot of a certain hamburger chain. They tend to make her look even younger than her implied age (probably early teens), and on the rare occasions when she wears her hair down, she looks older — so much so that in one scene, her traveling companion fails to recognize her without the pigtails.
• Gunslinger Girl frequently stresses how the eponymous cyborg killing machines are also little girls so Triela and Elsa, two of the more serious girls, have twin tails to reinforce this.
• Haou Airen: Kurumi, though technically speaking she's 17 and thus a little old for the style. She wears them to emphasize her youth and innocence in contrast to the Crapsaccharine World she winds up in, and keeps them even as she loses said innocence through all the Break the Cutie.
• Amano from Happy Seven is a Sailor Moon expy, complete with blonde pigtails and a ditzy personality.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • Haruhi invokes this with Mikuru's waitress Cosplay outfit, in order to enhance the Moe in Mikuru's look.
  • Haruhi herself, before cutting her hair, also used to wear pigtails on occasion when she entered North High, as part of her routine of changing hairstyles according to the day of the week.
• Hayate the Combat Butler:
  • Nagi is both a Tsundere and a somewhat innocent little girl.
  • Izumi and Ayumu both share the "innocent young girl" and hair decorations look without the tsundere or length to take away from it.
• Hello! Sandybell's titular character wears her hair in bunches, fitting her youthful nature. She tends to tie it up with beads and bows.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Seychelles sports low twintails with big ribbons.
  • The strip that introduces Liechtenstein shows that she used to have long twin braids before cutting her hair to resemble her brother Switzerland more.
  • Also, the author's own Gender Bender version of the characters shows England as a meganekko with twin tails, and given that male England is normally quite tsundere by himself...
  • The female Canada has these as well and is described as quite mild-mannered by the author.
  • Taiwan temporarily got this hairstyle during Hetaween 2011 to go along with her Idol Singer costume (complete with Zettai Ryouiki).
• One of the most iconic characters from anime and manga to feature Girlish Pigtails is the title character of the pioneering 1960s magical-girl series Himitsu no Akko-chan, communicating the character's sweet and plucky, if somewhat naive, nature. She retains her trademark hairstyle in the '80s and '90s anime remakes as well.
• Eriri Spencer Sawamura and Izumi Hashima from How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend sport this hairstyle. Eriri is the tsundere, and Izumi is the youngest member of the cast.
• Hyakunichikan!!: Kindergartener Chiho normally wears her hair in two pigtails, similar to Chiyo from Azumanga Daioh. It also fits her Animal Motif of rabbits.
• If Her Flag Breaks:
  • Kurumiko has this hair style, which fits her cheerful personality.
  • Hakua has pigtails as well, fitting her child-like behavior.
• Junsui Adolescence:
  • Nanao is a Tsundere with pigtails.
  • The other tsundere, Kiiko, is also briefly shown with these.
• Miko, Moeha, and Maki from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War all wear pigtails of some variety, though each of them falls into a different character archetype (naive, Cute and Psycho, and Tsundere respectively).
• Ritsuko from Kids on the Slope wears her hair in pigtails, which when combined with her Youthful Freckles gives her a Hollywood Homely look. She bemoans how she isn't as "pretty" as her urban-born friend. As an adult she wears her hair short, in a pixie cut.
• Kiniro Mosaic:
  • Alice is a pigtail-wearing The Ingenue.
  • Aya is a pigtail-wearing "girly girl" out of a Tomboy and Girly Girl pair.
  • Youko, the resident tomboy, invokes this when she tries imitating Aya in order to be more "ladylike".
• Azusa in K-On! has these. Fittingly, she's the closest thing the group has to a Tsundere. Hilariously, the first time she's seen playing a guitar, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are shown as a background image, both with enormous pigtails.
• Nadeshiko Kagamihara from Laid-Back Camp wear her hair like this, fitting her girly and energetic personality.
• Several characters from Lapis Re:LiGHTs sport these, oftentimes as a way to intentionally or not emphasize their childishness, immaturity, and youthfulness. To be specific, there is...
  • Lavie of LiGHTs, who is the most immature of her unit.
  • Champe of Sugar Pockets, who intentionally plays up her Little Sister Heroine qualities.
  • Ange of Ray, who banked on her appeal as a cute, innocent, and "pure" girl when she was still performing.
• Amy March in the 1980 TV special and 1981 TV series adaptations of Little Women is drawn with Girlish Pigtails. This was likely meant to communicate her youth and immaturity.
• Lucky Star:
  • Konata straight-up calls Kagami a Tsundere for being moody and having pigtails. The duality of the trope is lampshaded when the Hiiragi sisters exchange hairstyles and Konata thinks Tsukasa looks infantile in pigtails. In another episode, Kagami floats the idea of cutting her hair and Konata begs her not to because "pigtails are the classic Tsundere hairstyle!"
  • Yutaka's pigtails carry the "innocence" connotation.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Nanoha and Fate themselves had them as a children. They switched to a side-ponytail and straight hair, respectively, as teenagers and adults, although they do still have them in their battle outfits until post-StrikerS. Their daughter Vivio takes to wearing her hair the same way that Nanoha did (with longer hair).
  • Vita and Teana Lanster, resident tsunderes. Teana eventually drops hers as a sign of maturity after the events of StrikerS.
  • Quattro has pigtails as a part of her Kawaiiko persona. She gets rid of them along with her glasses at the end when she's the last villain remaining to show that she's serious.
• Magical Angel Sweet Mint is a Cute Witch with sea-green pigtails.
• Miho of Fancy Lala has pigtails in her ordinary 9-year-old form, but loses them when she transforms into her Older Alter Ego.
• Majokko Tickle has blonde pigtails and a mischievous trickster personality.
• Maken-ki!'s resident Tsundere, Kodama Himegami, has blonde pigtails.
• Mao of Mao-chan is a clumsy yet adorable 8-year-old with pink pigtails.
• Hinata Kawamoto from March Comes in Like a Lion, who's a middle-schooler going through the many follies of her youth, such as teenagers' generalized lack of punctuality and the fumbles experienced during her first crush, sports these most of the time.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: The Nadesico's Scientific Officer and resident Little Miss Snarker Ruri Hoshino, is always seen with this hairdo save for a few scarce exceptions. The pigtails serve as a visual reminder that, despite her super intelligence and apparent maturity (she's always remarking how she's Surrounded by Idiots), she's still the youngest member of the crew.
• Mazinger Z offers a lethal example of this trope: The three Gamia sisters. They are three identical, blonde, human-looking robots, and each one wears ponytails that are long enough to touch the ground. Each strand of hair is made of Razor Floss and it is sharp enough to slice stones, metal... and, of course, human flesh. And they can move them at will. They show up again in Mazinkaiser and Shin Mazinger.
• Medabots: Karin Junmai has two large pigtails and is a Spoiled Sweet Cloudcuckoolander.
• Mekakucity Actors: Takane Enomoto◊ and Hiyori Asahina◊ both sport this hairstyle. Coincidentally, both fit the Type-A description of Tsundere to a T.
• Lucia from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is a pure-hearted ditz with blonde pigtails.
• Tohru and Georgie from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid both have pigtails as part of their image as maids (Georgie lets her hair down when she isn't playing the part). Kanna and Ilulu have something similar, though they have it bunched up in the back rather than the sides.
• Nena Trinity from Mobile Suit Gundam 00 sports twin pigtails and while at first she looks cheery and innocent... she turns out to be a Psychopathic Womanchild who'd nuke a wedding party because she is tired. Oh dear.
• My-HiME:
  • Mikoto, whose hair is mostly cut short except for two thin braids. The childish kind.
  • A young Yukariko has a pair in the eleventh special, and her hair greatly resembles Mikoto's.
• My Little Sister Stole My Fiance: Luna has her pink hair done in two pigtails. It's fitting considering how childish and irresponsible she is.
• Naruto:
  • Temari has quadruplet tails along with some Tsundere tendencies.
  • Tsunade and Moegi also sport pigtails. Tsunade's are smaller and less obvious, possibly matching with the immaturity of her addiction to various vices and early tendency to run away from problems. Moegi is younger, and the pigtails correspondingly larger.
  • Naruto's Sexy technique dons them. Seems to be in line with Naruto's immature personality.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Asuna, as the main Tsundere.
  • The extremely childlike Fuka Narutaki. Her twin sister Fumika has Odango Hair.
  • Anya, another Tsundere, this time around the age of Negi.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Although it doesn't look like it (likely because they're so well-blended in), Asuka has pigtails. This is perhaps symbolic of her trying not to be a girl, but really being one. Fittingly, it's the "tsundere tails" style, which she helped codify thanks to her personality.
  • A more noticeable example would be Hikari, who, along with the pigtails, comes with a Tsundere personality as well just like Asuka.
• Aoba Suzukaze of New Game! has her hair in pigtails, and is a high school graduate in a company full of young adults.
• Nurse Witch Komugi has two teensy little pigtails sticking out of the sides of her head, with the rest of her hair in a braid.
• Hana-chan and Pop from Ojamajo Doremi.
• Perona, one of the villains of the Thriller Bark arc of One Piece (specifically, part of Gecko Moria's crew), has pigtails styled in Regal Ringlets.
  • Nami occasionally puts her hair into pigtails, depending on her look for the arc.
• Cynthia Lane from Overman King Gainer sports a pair. This definitely highlights her immaturity along with her inability to differentiate actual Overman combat from mecha video games.
• In Panzer World Galient, cutesy, bratty, ten-year-old Chururu has pigtails. She stops wearing them when she grows up.
• Glenda, the Dark Magical Girl from Petite Princess Yucie, has the "immature, impulsive, and Tsundere-ish" variety of pigtails.
• Pretty Cure, a series with lots of young girls as protagonists, has several examples:
  • Yes! Pretty Cure 5: Nozomi, the childish and clumsy lead of the team, wears pigtails in her civilian form.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure!: Love, like Nozomi before her, is a childish optimist who wears pigtails in both her civilian and Cure forms.
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪: Hibiki, the wild, least mature member of the team, gets drill pigtails in her Cure form.
  • Smile PreCure!: Miyuki, an overly idealistic and naive fanatic of fairy tales, wears two twin buns in civilian form and two huge pigtails in her Cure form.
  • HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: Hime, a spoiled, youthful girl has long pigtails in her Cure form.
  • Maho Girls Pretty Cure!: Ha-chan, the little fairy that Mirai and Riko look after, gets a small pair of pigtails in her third form. They turn into massive twin braids in her Cure form.
  • KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode: Ichika, the bubbly, energetic lead with a Strawberry Shorthad, wears pigtails in both her civilian and Cure forms.
  • From HuGtto! Pretty Cure, there's Emiru, the youngest girl in the main team who does childish things like sleeping with stuffed animals. She wears long pigtails in her civilian form, which turn into long curls in her Cure form.
  • Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure: Hikaru, the starry-eyed dreamer who often comes into conflict with her strict grandfather, has pigtails in her civilian form that turn into Saturn-themed twintails in her Cure form.
  • Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Hinata, the least mature and most energetic member of the group, has pigtails in both her civilian and Cure forms.
• Tomoka Osakada (12-year-old Tsundere) and Miyuki Chitose (10-year-old Bokukko) from The Prince of Tennis.
• The Puella Magi Madoka Magica franchise:
  • The original Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
    • Madoka Kaname, for the childish connotation.
    • Homura Akemi, of all people, used to have them before... well, her cutie breakage happened.
  • In the Spin-Off manga, Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, Yuuri has them. Both Yuuris.
  • Yuma Chitose in Puella Magi Oriko Magica.
• Puni Puni☆Poemi has pink pigtails, though she's less childish and more just downright stupid.
• Kokoa from Rosario + Vampire. Tsundere to the hilt (a trait which the manga and the anime address in opposite directions), loves her big sister Moka while at the same time wanting to defeat her in battle.
• In Sailor Moon, the title character has her famous combo of Odango and twintails, and Chibi-Moon's hairstyle is based on her mother's, but is more poofy and pigtail-like — Chibi of course being a small child, and Usagi being rather childish in attitude.
• St. ♡ Dragon Girl: The energetic and often immature Momoka sports twin buns and pigtails.
• Nodoka of Saki. Seemed to be a contrast to her logical personality at first, until her schoolgirl crush on Saki comes out. And then there's the penguin plushie.
  Mako: [teasingly] How old are you?
  Yuuki: [also teasingly] You're such a baby!
  Nodoka: [in a huff while hugging her penguin] I'm going to sleep now!
  Hisa: [thinking to herself while she watches everyone] Even though she's usually so resolute, Nodoka can be unexpectedly childish at times.
• The tomboyish Yoshiko ("Yotchan"), one of Sally the Witch's two BFFs.
• Subverted by Meru in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. She has twintails and looks like a Cute Mute until you get to know her. Total bitch.
• Eri from School Rumble. Tsundere to the bone. Harima only has eyes for Tenma, but Tenma thinks that he likes her sister Yakumo. Tenma sends Eri (who secretly has feelings for Harima) to question him about what kind of girl he likes, under some pretense that isn't important right now. Eri asks him what kind of hairstyle he likes for a girl, as he spots Tenma's signature pigtail hiding a few feet away and realizes what this is all about. He decides to drop an unsubtle hint by stating how he likes girls with pigtails — without realizing that Eri also has pigtails. Cue Yakumo walking in with pigtails. (Notably each girl has very different styles of tails, with Tenma having Expressive Hair and Eri being closer to Regal Ringlets, while Yakumo normally wears her hair loose and seems to have only switched over for the sake of the gag.)
• The title character of Shakugan no Shana. 'Nother Tsundere.
• Shugo Chara!:
  • Amu's innocent and cutesy Amulet Clover form has pigtails. As does her Amulet Diamond form.
  • The incredibly immature Yuki Yaya.
  • The tsundere-ish Utau Hoshina.
  • Amu's younger sister Ami.
• Maka from Soul Eater, like Misa, has her hair in thin pigtails (however, they are her hair completely parted and tied, unlike a few streaks in Misa's case). She's generally nice, but... yeah, she also has her Tsundere streaks. Although, the pigtails may be more to signify her somewhat tomboyish personality (she never really shows interest in girlish things, and is more into defeating her enemies and becoming stronger and smarter).
• Luluco of Space Patrol Luluco has a single pigtail on her left side that signifies her girlish immaturity. There's even a hole in her space helmet for it. It turns into an Idiot Hair when she becomes Trigger-chan.
• Keiko Ayano, a.k.a. Silica of Sword Art Online, is the resident Token Mini-Moe and youngest member of her group of friends. Fittingly, she wears her hair this way, which only adds to her cuteness.
• The eponymous Nana Hiiragi of Talentless Nana is a Rose-Haired Sweetie who wears them like this, emphasizing her sweet, ditzy, and kind personality. This is exactly how she wants other people to think about her to disguise her cold, calculating, and sociopathic true self.
• In Tamagotchi: The Movie, Tanpopo, the Token Human of Mametchi's gang, has pigtails. Oddly, nothing seems to be holding them in place.
• Tamako Market has Tamako, a simply, happy-go-lucky girl with pigtails.
• In the Tenchi Muyo! series, Word of God states that it's actually a custom for female Juraians, especially those in the Royal Family, to wear their hair in pigtails, thus explaining Sasami and Ayeka's hairstyle. However, it's more of "Let's not radically change them" when you get to Pretty Sammy or Sasami: Magical Girls Club.
• Tentomushi no Uta: Hiyoko has stubby pigtails to underscore the fact that she is the youngest of the seven Isshuu siblings.
• Milim from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime wear her hair in two messy pigtails. She's also incredibly childlike and ditzy.
• This is used as a plot point in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. Mari's four-year-old daughter wears pigtails. When Mari is told her daughter and mother were killed in an earthquake she's told to identify the bodies but can't bear to. The pigtails is enough evidence for her. Mirai later finds her daughter alive later and identifies her by her hair.
• Flute from Violinist of Hameln sports these for a while, along with a pink hat, but later graduates to a different, more mature hat with her hair hanging loose.
• Wandering Son:
  • Kanako traditionally wore pigtails ever since at least kindergarten, though she stopped putting her hair in pigtails once she became a high school freshman.
  • Chiba wore pigtails in middle school (though only while at school), but they comes off as Tsundere pigtails.
• The title character of Witch Hunter Robin has a really weird variation. Probably supposed to remind us that she's fifteen.
• The heroine of Yadamon has green pigtails that can turn into wings.
• The title character from Yotsuba&! (written by the same author as Azumanga Daioh). She's five and very energetic and cheery.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has Luca who wears her hair like this, distinguishing her from her twin brother Lua who has a Samurai Ponytail. She lets her hair down after becoming an adult.
• Yuugai Shitei Doukyuusei: Miyako always wears her hair in braids, and is more innocent than Reika.

Asian Animation

• In Happy Heroes, Sweet S., the sole female of the main Superman team, has two little pigtails poking out of the back of her helmet. She's a Kid Hero like the other Supermen and is gentle and kind, serving as The Heart of the team.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics:
  • Betty Cooper can be seen with this hairstyle sometimes, especially in the 1960s, though she usually prefers a Tomboyish Ponytail. She fits the "tomboy" stereotype to a T, though this is usually her girlish, younger side showing.
  • When Archie was genderswapped his female version, Archina, wore pigtails to exaggerate her youthfulness and because Archie is a de facto All-American Boy.
• Several Astro City characters sport these — American Chibi, Matilda "Tillie" Armstrong, and Cammie's nine-year-old cousin Holly in "Pastoral."
• Jules from Bazooka Jules has two small pigtails that grow all the way down to the floor when her powers activate. She can be a little childish at times and despite being a teenager she's still into Hello Kitty.
• The Beano:
  • Ivy the Terrible, a preschool-age tomboy who used to appear in the comic, had her hair in bunches, which generally followed her motion-lines to emphasize how active she was.
  • Minnie the Minx, another tomboy from the same comic (probably around ten) has more constrained pigtails (which may actually be plaits, Depending on the Artist) with bows at the end.
• Harley Quinn usually has her hair done up like this, however it's usually covered by her hat. She is an immature woman (or at least she acts like one). This came in full effect after the New 52, where she's done away with the jester cap and uses her half-black-half-red hair to replace it. In contrast, when she's depicted as "sane" or as a civilian, she is usually depicted with a more mature-looking ponytail.
• Supergirl:
  • In Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, the main character has two little pigtails which make her look younger, so enhancing her civilian disguise.
  • In Bizarrogirl, Kara braids her hair into cute twin pigtails which make her look younger than she is.
• Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark started out with an Ivy League cut, but when she started growing it out she put it in twintails that made her look even younger than her age in order to have a more feminine hairstyle.

Comic Strips

• Madam & Eve: 8-year-old Thandi is always shown with her hair tied in two small bunches on top of her cornrows.
• In Peanuts, Violet, who's sort of a combination of tsundere and Rich Bitch, often wore her hair in pigtails in the early years of the strip. This was eventually changed to a ponytail, which remained Violet's hairstyle through the remainder of her appearances, except for a brief appearance in one 1989 strip in which she was again drawn with pigtails.
• Hilary Forth in Sally Forth (Howard) had her hair in pigtails when the strip started. When she was aged up to a teenager, she dropped them.

Fan Works

• Advice and Trust: Hikari wears this hairstyle. They make her seem younger, even though Touji calls her the "pigtailed dictator".
• The Child of Love: Asuka wears this hairstyle, even after becoming a mother, and she still wears them in her late 20s.
• Minor character Mikoto from the Higurashi: When They Cry oneshot Cicada Psalms is described as a little girl with pigtails. Her girlish fondness of her teacher Keiichi is meant to emphasise how much Keiichi has changed since he moved to Hinamizawa.
• In the drabble Cure Floof, Love styles Inori's hair into pigtails, so they can match.
• Doing It Right This Time makes a minor plot-point out of both Hikari and Asuka doing away with this look in favour of a more "adult"-looking hairstyle. In Hikari's case it's only for a special occasion, but Asuka has made it permanent.
• Evangelion 303 makes a plot point of Asuka ditching this look: After recovering from her break-down she stopped wearing her hair in pigtails because she wanted to seem more mature.
• Ghosts of Evangelion: After the War Asuka kept wearing her hair braided in pigtails for many years.
• HERZ: Asuka is twenty-six years old, has got her hair cut... and she still wears pigtails right like when she was thirteen.
• Deborah of Junior Officers, the team's biggest Girly Girl, wears her hair in fat pigtails.
• Last Child of Krypton: Several characters wear this hairstyle: Asuka, Hikari, Sakura Suzuhara...

  She clapped with joy, pigtails bouncing, and he turned in horror and saw it.

• The Legend of Genji:
  • Nami wears her hair in braided pigtails, which are meant to show how she is the youngest of the main characters.
  • Genji's little sister Shai is a 10-year-old girl whose two low pigtails highlight her youth.
  • Ikki's 12-year-old daughter Ling Ling has her hair tied into twin tails.
• In The Legend of Total Drama Island, Katie and Sadie arrive on the island wearing their canonical pigtails, befitting their canonically childlike personalities. When they get makeovers that include ditching their pigtails for big hair, they look "five years older than they had the day before", according to the Storyteller. Noah further lampshades this by saying, "The kiddies have grown up." Shortly thereafter, the "grown-up" Katie and Sadie get caught up in one of the story's most grimly dramatic adventures — just in time for Sadie's birthday.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide, secondary character Hikari wears twin pig-tails, and she freely admits that hairstyle makes her seem more juvenile. This comes back around in the Epilogue, by which point she has long since stopped wearing it, but she decides to don it for a meeting with her old friends, whom she hasn't seen for years, to make herself more recognizable to them.
• In The Second Try, Asuka wore this hairstyle when she was young. When she grew up, though, she had to get her hair cut because her daughter kept pulling on it. She saw it as another aspect of her childhood fading, and was briefly rather upset about it... until Shinji said it made her "look like a mother".
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Asuka usually wears this hairstyle, using her neural hairclips to braid her pigtails. She only undoes them when she is acting as Supergirl and needs to hide her identity.
• Male example with Kiriha Sadamune from Tales of the Undiscovered Swords, whose red hair is worn in twin pigtails. They are frequently compared to carrots by his Big Brother Bully Ishida.
• In Thousand Shinji, innocent, naive Hikari's twin pigtails is the first thing Shinji notices about her when he meets her.

Films — Animation

• Maria Posada as a child in The Book of Life. Averted, as even at that age Maria's personality was basically the same as when she grew up; she loved swordfights and Manolo's music, and was very outspoken on her views of marriage. Word of God says that hairstyle is meant to represent her love of pigs.
• Sheeta in Castle in the Sky... at least until Colonel Muska shoots them off — which, not coincidentally, comes at the point where Sheeta stops running and confronts him for the last time.
• Princess Anna in Frozen (2013) sports braided pigtails, even into adolescence, as a way of emphasizing her innocence and naivete. In Frozen II she briefly sports them again early on, but spends the rest of the film with her hair either down or in a bun, highlighting her new maturity.
• In Inside Out, Riley has pigtails as a toddler.
• In My Neighbor Totoro, the irrepressibly energetic four-year-old Mei has her hair tied in tails, contrasting with her older sister's tomboyishly short haircut.
• Tiana as a child in The Princess and the Frog.
• In The Swan Princess, Odette has braided pigtails during the tomboyish phase of her childhood.

Films — Live-Action

• Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed adaptations is a subversion, looking like an innocent child but being evil underneath.
• Amy, the young Mafia Princess in Casino, perhaps showing she's one of the few truly innocent people in the movie.
• Cthulhu: Worn by Tori Spelling's character when she tries to seduce the protagonist. When that doesn't work (as he's gay) she resorts to other methods.
• Gas Food Lodging: For much of the early part of the film Shade is wearing her hair in girlish pigtails. This is both to mark her as distinct from her sexually adventurous older sister Trudi, and to set up a Letting Her Hair Down rite of passage when she stops wearing the pigtails as she starts pursuing boys.
• Prim in The Hunger Games. Notably, she just has a ponytail in the sequel. Peeta also recalls a time from when Katniss was younger and had two braids instead of one.
• Claudia from Interview with the Vampire starts as an innocent girl, but when turned to a vampire she gradually becomes more jaded and evil while retaining the appearance of a child.
• Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass sports these when out of her superhero costume.
• In the Deborah Kerr version of King Solomon's Mines, Elizabeth's brother suggests braiding her hair in pigtails to protect it from the humidity. She protests that she can't, as she's a grown woman. Apparently cutting off the hair is preferable to looking a little immature.
• The Legend of Billie Jean has Putter with braided pigtails, played by Yeardley Smith, who voices a little girl we all know and love in a prime-time, long-running animated sitcom.
• Lolita wears her hair in messy braids throughout the 1997 film, which (along with an orthodontic retainer) are used to make the teenaged actress playing a girl who is twelve younger. Subverted later in the movie when Lolita is enrolled at Beardsley College, showing how Humbert is forcing Dolores to maintain a childlike appearance when (thanks to his actions) She Is All Grown Up.
• Through much of the 1938 version of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Shirley Temple wears her signature curls in pigtails as the imaginative, spirited Rebecca .
• The Rock: The wife of the FBI agent (played by Nicolas Cage) wears these while having sex with him.
  Wife: You like my pigtails, honey?
  FBI Agent: Yes, they're very naughty.
• In Sky Riders, the kidnapped three-year-old Susie wears her blonde hair in pigtails.
• Spring in a Small Town: 16-year-old Xiu wears her hair in pigtails. This underlines her bubbly, cheerful personality, which contrasts to her older brother and his wife, both of whom are mired in depression and a failed marriage.
• Emily Browning sports blonde pigtails to play the appropriately named Babydoll in Sucker Punch. The pigtails help convey her innocence. In the brothel world at least, she is a virgin.
• In The Coen Brothers' 2010 version of True Grit, 14-year-old Mattie wears her hair in two long braids. Naturally, it makes her demeanour all the more jarring.
• Evey in V for Vendetta disguises herself as an underage prostitute for a priest. Part of her costume is pigtails, the other part is a Catholic schoolgirl outfit.
• The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy sports braided pigtails throughout the first half of the film. After her makeover in the Emerald City she wears her hair down with a bow instead, but the pigtails have become far more iconic.
• X-Men: Apocalypse: Jubilee sports these instead of the Boyish Short Hair she usually wears in the comics and is significantly more girly here.

Literature

• In the A is for Amber books, a Prequel picture book series to the Amber Brown titles, Amber Brown sports these as a means of enhancing her Deliberately Cute Child appearance.
• Anne of Green Gables has the long, braided pigtails hanging down variant.
• The Babysitters Club: This is enforced with Mary Anne, whose strict father won't let her take down her pigtails even at age twelve. Her being allowed to wear her hair loose is a major point of character development, as is the short haircut she gets later in the series.
• Beware of Chicken: Rou Tigu has these, in keeping with her general Farmer's Daughter aesthetic.
• This is Genki Girl Mary-Lou Trelawney's signature hairdo in the Chalet School series, and she calls them "Kenwigses" as a Shout-Out to Nicholas Nickleby. When she becomes a senior, she ditches the Kenwigses and wears her hair in a single tail instead, as a sign that she's growing up. Then she gets it all chopped off after an accident and it grows back curly.
• In Anne Rice's hardcore-bondage-porn novel The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, in one bizarre pony-play scenario the heroine — aged 15 — is forced to wear her hair in braided pigtails that start near the top of her head, to make her look even younger than she is.
• Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling. Action Girl Astrid Larsson keeps her girlish pigtails as they help lower the tension a notch when meeting new clans and negotiating safe passage through their territory.
• The title character of Franny K. Stein is a seven-year-old Mad Scientist with pigtails.
• The protagonist of Girls Kingdom, Misaki Hotaru, wears her hair in small pigtails held in place by scrunchies modeled after her favorite food: donuts. They serve to emphasize her girly, slightly naive personality and her slightly gluttonous nature.
• Evoked in Little Women, when Jo responds with disgust to Meg's suggestion that she behave in a more mature, feminine way now that she's old enough to wear her hair up:
  Jo: I'm not [a young lady]! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty!
• An odd use: in Matilda by Roald Dahl, the evil schoolmistress Agatha Trunchbull hates pigtails and punishes all who wear them. A girl protests that her mother likes her pigtails. Trunchbull responds, "Yer mum's a twit!" Then she grabs the girl by the pigtails and throws her over a fence. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that a woman who hates everything about children — and girls in particular — would of course hate a girlish hairstyle like pigtails.
• The title character of Holly Beth Walker's Meg Mysteries series, roughly 12-years-old Meg Duncan, has pigtails.
• Pippi Longstocking, of course, usually wears her red hair in two horizontal braided pigtails sticking out either side of her head. This is entirely in keeping with her zany, childish glee.
• Jill Simon, a character in Patricia Reilly Giff's 1980s Polk Street School series, wears her hair in not one, but two pairs of Girlish Pigtails. This fits with her character, as Jill is something of an immature crybaby.
• The Proudest Blue: Faizah, younger sister to Asiyah, has her hair tied into little pigtails.
• Samurai Scarecrow: Kasha, Yukio's little brother, has Japanese-looking pigtails.
• Cindy Wakowski a.k.a Red Riding Hood of The Supervillainy Saga sports a pair of these, which fits given that she's a Harley Quinn Expy.
• Princess Frida from Unimaa is described as having large blonde pigtails. It's likely because she wants to give off an aura of childlike innocence to hide her true nature.
• In Wayside School, Leslie has pigtails which Paul is tempted to pull. A stage adaptation gives her pigtails speaking parts, and the animated adaptation makes her pigtails controllable, demonstrated when Leslie played bongos with them.
• The Wheel of Time:
  • One of the Wise Ones threatens to do this to Egwene if she doesn't stop acting so childishly. This threat is followed up on, with short skirt to match. It doesn't entirely work, thanks to cross-cultural differences: in Egwene's hometown, wearing a pair of braids is a sign of a woman reaching adulthood. However, she gets the gist of the intent enough to still be embarrassed.
  • Aiel Maidens, who take Honor Before Reason to extremes, do this with the addition of carrying dolls after a particular failing.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz doesn't specify Dorothy's hairstyle, but the original illustrator, W.W. Denslow, drew her with braided pigtails. This look became so iconic for her that some other illustrators outside the main series have followed suit, as did the movie. Other adaptations typically depict her with this hairstyle too.
• The Worst Witch:
  • Mildred Hubble. In the spin-off to the television series adaptation Weirdsister College she cuts them off, which is probably symbolic of her growing up.
  • Her best friend Maud sports the loose version of these for the first two books, but it has grown out by the third book and she braids them.

Live-Action TV

• In the 18th cycle of America's Next Top Model, this would be the enforced hairstyle for "30-Never" Eboni. Much to her irritation.
• In Angel, Wesley ends up in a not-entirely-healthy relationship with Amoral Attorney Lilah, who is aware of Wesley's unrequited interest in geek girl Fred. So in "Apocalypse Nowish", just to get Wesley's gears spinning, she does a fetish impersonation of Fred, complete with pigtails to show how she sees Fred's relative immaturity.
• Olive on A.N.T. Farm sports pigtails as a part of her little girl disguise on the episode "FraudulANT".
• In an episode of Arrested Development, Maeby tries to fool the security guard at her grandmother's apartment complex into giving her the mail by putting her hair in pigtails and riding up to the security booth on a razor scooter. Her response when he points out that she's a little old to be getting all that mail: "Babysit me!"
• In The Big Comfy Couch, Loonette's signature hairstyle is pigtails sticking out from holes in her hat.
• The Brady Bunch:
  • Cindy Brady wore these for three whole seasons to keep up the appearance of The Cutie, much to the chagrin of actress Susan Olsen. In Season 4 they were changed to braided pigtails, and finally she got to start wearing her hair down in the last half of Season 5.
  • Maureen McCormick also wore pigtails for virtually all of Season 1. She let her hair down for only a couple of scenes, including one where Marcia was going to the school dance, before wearing her hair down to start Season 2.
  • Eve Plumb wears her hair in a clip for most Season 1 episodes, but wears pigtails during the Grand Canyon episodes.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Buffy sports pigtails during Giles's dream sequence in the episode "Restless". Buffy's attitude in the scene is that of a much younger child, and Giles is essentially her father.
  • Buffy sports pigtails while working incognito at a Greasy Spoon in "Anne".
  • Dawn sports them in 'Forever' whilst trying to help Buffy choose a coffin for their mother's funeral, emphasising how young she is (despite already being taller than her older sister), how devastating this is for her and explaining her actions later in the episode.
• Laura Quinones in Carrusel wears this hairstyle. She is one of the girlier girls in the class, as well as rather immature (except for being very precocious when it comes to romance), and not a good student.
• El Chavo del ocho: Since the cast of the show is composed entirely by adults, this hairdo serves as one of the visual clues to identify characters as young and immature.
  • La Chilindrina has pigtails that are always uneven (in early episodes, they used to be long twintails until El Chavo cut them short in a barber episode).
  • La Popis also shares this hairdo, but her hair is so short that her pigtails are only noticeable in the animated version of the show.
• Sarah Walker from Chuck, when she's undercover as Weinerlicious girl and later, Orange Orange girl. Provides a great contrast to the sexy, sophisticated spy look she sports when it's time for missions.
• Dollhouse:
  • Ivy has pigtails, which suits her personality as the second least mature member of the Dollhouse staff.
  • Echo sports them while dressed as Kiki in the episode "Belle Chose", to show how ditsy her persona is meant to be.
• On Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Dyna Girl has very long pigtails.
• Buffy in Family Affair, even as the actress grew up.
• Family Matters: Judy Winslow wears her hair in braided pigtails in Seasons 1 through 3. Every single Season 1 episode she has her hair in several braided pigtails with various colored ribbons and accessories, and many Season 2 episodes have her wearing this hairstyle. Seasons 2 and 3 she often wears the more traditional two (or three) braided pigtails. Her hair is only seen down twice in Seasons 1 through 3. Her final season before she disappeared she wore her hair down, including in her opening title credit.
• In the TV film adaptation of Flowers in the Attic, Cathy is shown wearing pigtails in the first part of the film to make the 14-year-old Kiernan Shipka look a little bit younger^note Cathy starts out as twelve and ages to fifteen within the story.
• Phoebe, the most free-spirited of the girls on Friends, occasionally wears her hair in pigtails.
• Winifred on General Hospital regularly sports braided pigtails, which make her look like she's in her teens, when her actress is in her 30's.
• Mary Ann Summers from Gilligan's Island frequently sports these. She's implied to only be in her late teens/early twenties, making her one of the youngest (if not the youngest) of the castaways.
• Rikki Chadwick from H₂O: Just Add Water frequently wears her hair in pigtails. Ironically she is the most tomboyish of the group, but she is the most free spirited as well.
• On Heroes, during one flashback sequence, Claire's hair was put in pigtails to help make her appear about five years younger.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", Claudia sometimes sports braided pigtails (this is her hairstyle when Louis de Pointe du Lac rescues her from the burning rooming house, when she's shopping for her own coffin, and when she's Bug Catching during a boat ride with Louis) as a visual cue to viewers that she's a young girly girl.
• The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House: Sumire, a teenage geisha trainee, wears her hair in two braids by the side of her head.
• Twin braids is the Telenovela shorthand to say that the heroine is truly, totally innocent. Except in Maria Jose, where in addition to the innocence connotation it shows the indigenous roots of the heroine.
• In one episode of Murphy Brown, Corky's staying over at Murphy's home and acts as if it's a slumber party. Corky says, "We could braid each others hair!" and braids Murphy's into pigtails; when Eldon comes over and sees Murphy, he says she looks "like an old Heidi."
• Kari Byron of the Mythbusters, practically Once per Episode. Sometimes it's for style, and sometimes just to keep her hair out of her face (or the machinery), but it always indicates that the build team is deliberately hamming things up or testing something particularly outlandish.
• Abby from NCIS often sports pigtails as a visual clue of her youthful personality. Actress Paulie Perette mentioned in a behind-the-scenes short that she began braiding her pigtails because her long hair got caught by the wheels of Abby's mechanic roller-board.
• Mona Vanderwaal from Pretty Little Liars displays two pigtails, as well as glasses, in flashbacks prior to Alison's disappearance, to emphasize her status as "loser".
• Soleil Moon Frye's character in both the live-action and animated version of Punky Brewster. She's an energetic young girl in the show and currently provides the page image.
• Sadakatsiz: Derin comments that pigtails are childish, as she jokes that her parents are wearing clothes too formal and freaking out as if she's going to her first school gala. She'll have to change from her ponytail to Zeynep's (her baby daughter) pigtails.
• Schmigadoon!: Betsy, the local farmer's beautiful daughter, wears her hair in two curled blonde pigtails to emphasize her innocent beauty. Josh is discomfited by how young she seems when she pulls the moves on him.
• When Jordan from Scrubs is posing as a younger woman to impress her new gynecologist, she sports pigtails.
• Subverted by the rogue Vala in Stargate SG-1, who is anything but childlike or innocent. Given the character, though, it's possible she's doing it deliberately to mess with people.
• Terra Nova:
  • In the first season premiere, Maddie is shown with pigtails at first, in order to make her seem older after the 2 year Time Skip.
  • Zoe often sports them, but that's because she's 7.
• Even though she's clearly a grown woman, Chrissy Snow from Three's Company occasionally wears her hair in pigtails, fitting with her airheaded personality.
• Liz Skinner in Timeslip has girlish braids. Partly to identify her as a bit of a tomboy (though not as noticeably as some tomboys on television), but mostly to make her look younger. Her character was originally written to be just 12 years old, but later scripts revised her age up to 15; the reason for this being that the actress chosen was actually 18 at the time, and it was all they could do to convincingly make her look 15.
• Rui Takada in Ultraman X is the Girly Girl to Asuna's Tomboy Girl and her status as that is marked by her pigtails.

Manhua

• The mischievous titular character of Little Cherry sports two of these, which notably standout after she's stopped being depicted with a flower headband about five years after the manhua's debut.

Music

• Chibi of The Birthday Massacre wears her hair like this in some of their videos. Also occasionally combined with a school-girl outfit. All it does is make her look creepier. That was probably what she was aiming at, though.
• Devin Millar often wears his hair in twin pigtails. He also has an animated girl character named Millicent, who also wears pigtails but is blonde.
• Male example: Kurt Harland of Information Society often wears unusual hairstyles on stage, including pigtails.
• Miley Cyrus's appearance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (yeah, that one) had her wearing pigtails shaped like a teddy bear's ears, fitting the "dancing teddy bear" theme of the performance.
• The members of M-Kids, who are Tamara Cambre, Davina Cambre, and Britt De Winter wore their hair in twin pigtails to reflect their youthfulness.
• The 1969/70 Mark Lindsay hit "Arizona" isn't about a state, but about a pigtailed hippie girl.
• Britney Spears is both invoking and subverting this trope when she sings "Hit Me Baby (One More Time)" in pigtails.
• Emma Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice of the Spice Girls, especially in the early years.
• The Statler Brothers song "I Was There" combines this trope with She's All Grown Up, with the male narrator describing a woman he's known all his life. In the opening lines, getting ready for her prom, she has "bought her first heels" and "combed those last pigtails from her hair."
• Toni Basil sport this hairstyle both on the cover of the single and the music video for "Hey Mickey," to compliment her cheerleader outfit.

Pinballs

• In WhizBang Pinball's Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons, Hellen has one, while Ellen has two. It helps in their Innocent Farmer's Daughter personas.

Pro Wrestling

• Women in wrestling, especially during various kinds of "costume" matches, will pull their hair into pigtails for the sake of the outfit.
• A.J. Lee tends to favor these. She's frequently mistaken for much younger than she actually is, so this is probably to emphasize that.
• Claudia Del Solis seems to have worn as many as ten braided pig tails. Presumably, they are extensions.
• Rare Male Example: "Exotic" Adrian Street wore these as part of his Gorgeous George persona. He was far from the last pro wrestler to do so.
• Gail Kim often wears her hair in pigtails when she wrestles and she makes them badass. She won the first TNA Knockouts title while her hair was in pigtails as a matter of fact.
• Leva Bates has a set of ring gear prominently featuring pink skulls with pigtails, and is known for wearing her hair that way too.
• Loca, one half of Women Of Wrestling's first tag team champions, CagedHeat and alumna of WWA Mexico, had four pig tails.
• Lorelei Lee tied ribbons in her hair that had the same visual effect.
• Mia Yim sometimes wrestled in pigtails, such as in 2014 when she won the SHINE Title belt in China.
• During her first year in the WWF, Molly Holly regularly wore her blond hair in pigtails. She even wore them again when she reprised her original persona at WrestleMania 25. Her character was that of a sweet country bumpkin who was the Token Wholesome in contrast to the rest of the vampy Divas.
• At GCW Adults F-N Only #7, MsChif figured she left a bad first impression on new arrival New-Age Retro Hippie Daizee Haze and decided to "correct" it by skipping around while wearing a giant pair of pigtails. Haze was not amused.
• Rip Rogers used to regularly wear his hair in pigtails with a top knot while working as a jobber in WWF and WCW.
• Shark Boys are blue or silver. Shark Girls are pink. But if you're color blind, Shark Girls also have pig tails.
• Tamina Snuka of all people sported these when she fell in love with Santino.

Puppet Shows

• Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock has a set of pigtails that stick out and the tips look like pompoms. It gives more emphasis to her tomboyish personality.
• The Puzzle Place: Kiki has pigtails, and compared to the soft-spoken Jody and sassy diva Julie, she's overall the most childlike and Genki Girlish of the show's three main girls.
• Sesame Street: Betty Lou (never as prominent a character on the show as in the tie-in storybooks, but still present) is a little Anything Muppet girl with long braided pigtails.
• Under the Umbrella Tree: Gloria has pigtails –- a good reminder that she, Iggy, and Jacob are supposed to be children, despite their Ping Pong Naïveté.

Theatre

• In most productions of the opera Hansel and Gretel (1893), Gretel has pigtails. This is an effective way to make an adult soprano look more like a little girl.

Video Games

• Iris Sagan from AI: The Somnium Files wore high pigtails as a little girl and wears low ones in her late teens.
• Alba: A Wildlife Adventure: Alba has twin ponytails, emphasizing her youth (she's 11 or 12 years old).
• Britney Bloodrose from All Points Bulletin, ditzy rich teenager playing gangster for fun.
• Ar tonelico's Misha bears the rare tomboyish braided pigtails.
• In Before Crisis, one of the prequel games to Final Fantasy VII, Elena appears as a student, complete with pigtails and a schoolgirl uniform.
• Little Cereza in Bayonetta has an absolutely gigantic pair. Given she grows up into Bayonetta herself, the long hair is basically required.
• Rachel Alucard from BlazBlue has very long twintails and is predictably a Tsundere as well as a badass Elegant Gothic Lolita Vampire princess.
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 has Yuriko Omega, a joshikousei with Psychic Powers and questionable mental health who fights for the Empire of the Rising Sun.
• Ayumi Shinozaki from Corpse Party wears her hair in two blue pigtails, making her seem younger than she actually is.
• Dark Souls: This is one of the female hairstyles players can choose. According to Miyazaki, a female graphic artist asked that this hairstyle be included when she had to leave development due to illness.
• In the twelfth Dark Tales game, Lilly has her red hair in a pair of braided pigtails. It highlights the fact that she's an innocent little girl. It also adds to her incredible creepiness when she falls victim to Demonic Possession.
• Pandora of Death Jr., who is also a little bit of a Creepy Child, wears pigtails.
• Etna of Disgaea is a Tsundere with pigtails.
• Tiny Kong has these in the Donkey Kong series. She can also spin her pigtails around for slower descents.
• Subverted by Paragon Branka of Dragon Age: Origins. Technically, she wears her hair in pigtails, but there's no sign of the usual girlish innocence associated with this style: she's an evil and somewhat Ax-Crazy Mad Scientist.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest V: Bianca wore her blonde hair in small, cute twintails when she was ten.
  • Jessica from Dragon Quest VIII, even though she's an adult and quite buxom as well. Bonus points for being a Tsunde-redhead.
• Etrian Odyssey Untold: Frederica "Ricky" may have slept in a stasis capsule for over a thousand years, but she still wears her hair in small twintails that emphasize her "born-again youth", girlishness, and innocence from amnesia.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Vanille in Final Fantasy XIII. She's portrayed as both child-like and childish by the game.
• Midori from the Guitar Hero series wears them to emphasize her Genki Girl nature.
• Cindy from Kindergarten is a kindergarten-aged Girly Bruiser and attempted (but very unsuccessful) Fake Cutie, and to emphasize this she wears her blonde hair in pigtails paired with a pretty pink dress.
• Jinx, the Loose Cannon from League of Legends, whose long, braided pigtails reach almost down to her feet. They look very similar to Cammy's from the Street Fighter series.
• Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami: Nana Sakurai has pigtail in her pink hair.
• Juliet Starling from Lollipop Chainsaw sports these, along with the requisite child-like girlishness.
• In Love & Pies, a flashback scene shows Amelia wearing pigtails as a child.
• Liliane Vehlendorf of Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy is an Ojou (complete with a Meido Mana) as well as an extreme case of both the TsunTsun and DereDere sides of the spectrum, and she sports these pigtails.
• Noire from the Neptunia series wears her hair in this fashion, and is your typical Tsundere girl. Same with her sister Uni.
• Persona:
  • Yuka Ayase from the original Persona is a rather immature kogal who sports high pigtails.
  • Persona 3: As shown in "The Answer", Mitsuru Kirijo used to sport this style in her younger days, both as a kid (when she first awakened her Persona) and in her early teens (when she recruited Akihiko into S.E.E.S.).
  • Persona 4:
    • Rise Kujikawa wears her hair in high pigtails to emphasize her girly Idol Singer persona.
    • Nanako has pigtails because she really is a little girl.
  • Persona 5: Teenager and part-time model Ann Takamaki wears her hair in two low pigtails.
• Pilgrim (RPG Maker): Nekaneminorpe has pigtails and acts like a perky little girl, despite her Vague Age.
• Pokémon:
  • The female protagonists of the Johto games have pigtails and are young.
  • The female protagonist of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire somehow manages to keep them up without any visible bands.
• Pro Evolution Soccer allows you to put these on your created players. Bear in mind that most soccer games are Always Male, and this one's no exception.
• Momo Karuizawa from Project Justice has these, which fit her very youthful appearance.
• Red Alert 3: Yuriko wears her hair this way (held in place with psychic dampeners), but while her age isn't given her personality is anything but childish.
• Katherine Warren wears her hair in two pigtails in Resident Evil 2 (Remake), which doubles as a fairly practical hairstyle during the Ghost Survivors scenario.
• Candy from the Richman series has two large pigtails that goes down on her shoulder , fitting her cute and kind personality.
• Uriel Chuluun in Rift, who's the rebellious daughter of a Defiant leader and (based on some of her dialogue) possibly a borderline Psychopathic Womanchild.
• In Roots of Pacha, Ibon, the middle child of Acre and Croll's family and one of the romanceable characters, wears pigtails to show that she's younger than Jelrod.
• Rebecca Walsh from Rumble Roses displays pigtails in three different colors depending on how and where you pick her: red◊ as Candy Cane (the tomboyish Tsundere Punk Rocker, which is her default), or blond◊/brunette as Becky (the girlish cheerleader). Specifically in Becky's case it is brunette in the PS2 game and blond in the 360 game.
• Aika from Skies of Arcadia, which suits her outgoing and slightly childish personality.
• Squigly from Skullgirls sports these, at least until her parasite Leviathan pops one off so he too can see.
• Marine the Raccoon from Sonic the Hedgehog is a very childish Genki Girl with pigtails to match.
• Talim and Amy in almost all their appearances in the Soul Series (Amy takes this a step further), and Tira in Soulcalibur IV. All three characters are purportedly cute girls aged 17 or younger.
• The "Spiral Tailed Helm" in Spiral Knights sports huge pigtails, providing characters with a feminine appearance.
• Female Inklings in the first Splatoon have huge pigtails as their only hairstyle when they're in humanoid form, made out of a pair of their squid tentacles. Future games give players more hair options, but this remains as the default "Hippie" hairstyle and is used by the Series Mascot orange Inkling.
• Cammy White and Mika Nanakawa/Rainbow Mika from the Street Fighter series have versions of this hairdo. While Cammy's braids seem to be there just to emphasize that she's young, Mika's twin tails seem to hint at her personality, which contrasts with her being one of the largest females, in more ways than one.
• Toadette from the Super Mario Bros. series has these, befitting her upbeat, childlike personality.
• Tales Series:
  • Presea from Tales of Symphonia, although her youthful personality is apparent in the second game.
  • Anise from Tales of the Abyss is the Token Mini-Moe of the bunch.
  • Elise sports these in Tales of Xillia 2, which could be viewed as being symbolic of her having gotten over her shyness issues from the first game. You can also give them to anyone in the party (guys included) once you find the appropriate accessory.
• Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken has pigtails to go with her youthful Genki Girl personality. Even after she graduates high school, she keeps the pigtails (though they become slightly smaller).
• Mint from Threads of Fate. She's incredibly selfish and childish, too.
• In the Tomb Raider series, teenage Lara sports these, in contrast to adult Lara's long hair.
• Touhou Project:
  • Komachi Onozuka. She also wields a rather hefty scythe.
  • Hatate Himekaidou, Aya's rival, who is often portrayed in fanon as younger and less experienced than Aya.
• From the Trails Series, we have Estelle Bright, Tio Plato, KeA Bannings, Alfin Reise Arnor, Celine Millstein, and Nadia Rayne who wear their hair like this. This gets lampshaded in Hajimari where having a party that includes this group and win a battle has all of them discussing about this trope.
• Valkyria Chronicles:
  • Edy Nelson has a hairdo like this. She's also immature.
  • Alecia sports them, but it seems more to highlight her innocence than anything else.
• Jeanette from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines fits into the "Tsundere" type.
• Clementine starts wearing a pair in her hair after Lee cuts it in Episode 3 of The Walking Dead: Season One. She has this hairstyle until near the end of Episode 5 of New Frontier, where she has Javíer cut her hair even shorter.
• To emphasize her youth and (in her mind) inexperience as a maid and a Hollow-diver, Corin Wickes of Zenless Zone Zero wears her hair in two large pigtails.

Visual Novels

• CLANNAD:
  • Although it's hard to tell, Kotomi has these. Definitely the childish kind, as she's been sort of caught up in the past since her parents died.
  • Sunohara's little sister Mei, though she's actually a child.
• Junko Enoshima in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc sports these which is the first clue to her true nature as a Psychopathic Womanchild.
• Coco in Ever17. She's 14, looks 9 and acts 5. Most of the time, anyway.
• Downplayed with Rin Tohsaka in Fate/stay night. She's a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued young woman, but for all of her maturity she's a young girl at heart. Also a Grade S Zettai Ryouiki.
• The Fruit of Grisaia: Michiru sports these in order to further facilitate her tsundere personality.
• Asa and Yoru in If My Heart Had Wings both have long twintails. They're also both the youngest girls in the cast, though Yoru actually has a mature personality that belies her appearance.
• Makoto, of Kanon fame. She is largely a moe character though, albeit still with some slight tsundere-tendencies.
• Little Busters!:
  • Sasami has the half-up kind, as fitting her Tsundere personality.
  • Komari has little pigtails with hair decs on either side of her short hair, though they're not very big — in this case, childishness is definitely the intended impact.
• Miyuki of Tokimeki Memorial combines this with Anime Hair.
• Satsuki Yumizuka from Tsukihime. She's the only (well, sort of. She was supposed to be, anyway) love interest who actually does start basically normal and unaware of all the bad things going around.
• Umineko: When They Cry: Ange Ushiromiya is probably one of the more mature and level-headed characters, but she still uses hair clips that Battler gave her when she was much younger. Lampshaded by a few characters who say they make her look very childish.

Web Animation

• In AstroLOLogy, Cancer is probably the girliest of the cast with her affinity for all things feminine, and she has a pair of pigtails that resemble crab pincers, befitting the species her zodiac symbol represents.
• Homestar Runner:
  • Old-Timey Marzipan wears twintails to emphasize her more traditional "protagonist's sweetheart" personality compared to main-universe Marzipan, who's more mature and whose niceness is a bit dubious.
  • In Teen Girl Squad, Cheerleader wears them as part of her stereotypical cheerleader image. She's considerably less mature than So-and-So or What's-Her-Face (it's not really fair to judge The Ugly One's maturity by normal standards) and the most overtly girlish of all four.
• Debbie Smith of The Debbie and Carrie Show wore pigtails that were pink as a young girl. She later outgrew those and turned her hair blonde (her nature hair color) and wavy.
• Serial Designation J from Murder Drones sports these in both her original Worker Drone form and later her modified Disassembly Drone form. Played straight for the former, when she is a cute maid drone for a rich family, averted in the latter, where she’s been converted into a taller and more imposing Murder Machine with business attire and even garter-like designs on the legs. In both cases she graciously averts the usual attitude one would expect from this trope, being a no-nonsense mean girl with a particular disdain towards incompetence.
• The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History': Little Miss Epic sports this as her hairstyle.
• Tsumiki from Senpai Club is a parody of shoujo anime protagonists so of course she's a pink-haired girl with Innocent Blue Eyes who wears her hair in pigtails.

Webcomics

• This is the trademark look for Hope from Alone in a Crowd, although she prefers to call them "Hopetails".
• anti-HEROES has Zurie. This is to denote that despite being a high-ranking member of the Ivory Veil, she's still quite immature. Her bunches also have shades of Regal Ringlets.
• In Dubious Company, Tiren braids Elly's hair with these, as part of a drunken prank. Unfortunately for him, she got the hair-ties from Walter's Cursed MagiTek Room.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Molly the Monster◊ and her clone/sister Golly both have manes of fur naturally shaped like bunched pigtails — which reflects their youth and immaturity.
• Lilith Winterhill of In Wily's Defense, a sign of her immaturity.
• Rachel in Ladies In Waiting sports a pair of these and is also the most innocent and childish of the cast.
• The Last Days of FOXHOUND depicts The Boss with a pair in her youth.
• Missi, the young Genki Girl from Misfile has pigtails that sometimes appear to move with her mood.
• This is one of the most common appearances for female characters in Mountain Time. However, it's done more to emphasize their sex (the main difference between males and females in the comic being that the latter is always shown wearing a skirt) rather than to suggest youthfulness or innocence. In one comic, the pigtailed female comes off a bit like a prostitute. Or not. It's hard to say.
• Chiaki from My Impossible Soulmate used to wear her hair like this, until she decided to shorten it.
• NEXT!!! Sound of the Future: One of the features of Hatsune Miku's default design is a pair of twintails that add to her youthful, innocent image. Each individual Miku android is created with this hairstyle with the intention of invoking this trope for the sake of them being marketable idols, but not all of them end up keeping the style or matching the personality type.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Haley's Optimism Alter Ego is depicted as a young girl with pigtails. In #681, it's shown that Haley used to have that hairstyle.
  • Subverted with Tsukiko, who is an evil cleric/wizard, a convicted criminal, and a necrophiliac. But also kind of immature, so it sort of fits with the Psychopathic Womanchild angle.
  • Roy's mother, Sara Greenhilt, also sports Girlish Pigtails in her afterlife incarnation. Despite Sara dying as a gray-haired old woman, she never stopped seeing herself as the 19-year-old she once was.
• Wannabe Wiccan Girl from Queen of Wands, in this case also indicating her extraordinarily ditzy mindset.
• Rain (2010): Allison, Rain's childhood friend, wears her hair like this.
• Griffon of Rooster Teeth Comic drew herself with pigtails, even though in real life she usually wore a ponytail. It ties in with her more Womanchild depiction in the comic, when in real life she's viewed as an Action Girl.

Web Original

• DeviantArt:
  • Pictures of Doki has her donning these, apparently to show that she is, at times, rather girlish.
  • Then there is Brownie, who wore these as a child, and even as an adult she can be passed off as a bratty teenager.
• In Magical Girl Policy, Spirit Guard Valor wears her hair in pigtails, though not by choice.
• Trope-tan is sort of an example. It's supposed to represent Lumper vs. Splitter.

Web Videos

• In Noob, Couette wears pigtails and started out as a Distaff Counterpart to the franchise's Manchild. Incidentally, "couette" in the French word for the hairstyle.
• The Nostalgia Chick. As time went on, it was to show that even though she tries to be adult, she's really a childish sociopath. When Chick as a good person appeared in the Critic's holiday special, she had a neat ponytail. Nella and Elisa had their turn when they did parody commercials for "realistic baby dolls". Baby Colic, Baby Scarred For Life, Baby Death Wish... that kinda thing.

Western Animation

• In 3-2-1 Penguins!, Michelle sports these along with some Youthful Freckles.
• As Told by Ginger:
  • Dodie has these as she is the perkiest and most immature of the Power Trio. When she starts in high school she wears her hair down. In fact, whenever her hair is out of its pigtails, she appears to be trying to act more grown up or sophisticated.
  • Miranda puts her hair in these when she and Darren start dating.
• Meng from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Immature she certainly is.
• On Beat Bugs, Buzz sports these along with a general cute child look.
• Gretchen from Camp Lakebottom has these, although they're probably meant to be ironic since she's a cynical Deadpan Snarker.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • Numbuh Three's younger sister Mushi, who is a young girl with a peppy and childish personality. Subverted in that she turns out to be mean and calculating.
  • Numbuh Three herself used to sport these when she was younger; although she grew out of the pigtails, she didn't grow out of her childlike behaviour. She's also a Type B Tsundere.
• Box Lunch from Danny Phantom. Fitting since she is the youngest ghost to appear in the series.
• Daria:
  • Brittany certainly fits the "blissful ignorance" version.
  • Stacy typically wears her hair in a pair of braided pigtails. She's also easily the nicest member of the Fashion Club.
• Dee Dee from Dexter's Laboratory. She's older than Dexter, but acts more like a little girl.
• On Doc McStuffins, Doc McStuffins herself sports these, along with a purple hairband with a pink flower.
• Anabella from Doki wears these to show that she's cheerful.
• Vicky's little sister Tootie in The Fairly OddParents!.
• The young daughter in Familia Tipo wears her hair permanently in pigtails. She's immature and bratty.
• Sonia and Leah Glady from the French cartoon La Famille Glady. Weirdly, Sonia is actually Leah's mother, and yet she uses very girlish pigtails.
• Pistol from Goof Troop possesses a very large pair of these befitting of her Genki Girl characterization.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Harley had these as a child and reverts to them after breaking up with Joker.
• Season 2 of Hilda revealed the title protagonist had these when she was little.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • Helga has pigtails, but is a Tomboy with a Girly Streak and a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, not the standard cute Girly Girl. She is a Tsundere, though.
  • Girly Girl Lila has pigtail braids, playing the trope more straight than Helga.
• Penny, Gadget's young niece from Inspector Gadget. In the sequel-ish spinoff series, she upgrades to slightly less girlish ones◊.
• Jem:
  • Kimber and Pizzazz both wear pigtails in flashbacks to their childhood. In Pizzazz's case it signifies when she was more innocent and happy, back before her mother left and when she still got along with her dad.
  • One of the few times Kimber changes her hairstyle in-series, she wears pigtails to go with her cowgirl getup.
• Loopy from the Life with Loopy segments of KaBlam!. Fitting, as she's the youngest kid in the show (at seven).
• Eugly from Kaeloo wears her hair in pigtails. She also seems to be a Girly Girl, although there are no tomboys in the show's cast.
• In Kim Possible, the "flashback" scenes from "A Sitch in Time" show Kim with pigtails as a young girl.
• Annie from Little Einsteins definitely fits for this trope, since she is the youngest member of the team.
• Lana Loud of The Loud House has two long braided pigtails, while her twin sister Lola wears her hair down.
• Vendetta of Making Fiends (one of the character even refers to her as "the pigtailed one"), though obviously being an Enfant Terrible, she is a subversion.
• Meg from Mega Babies has green pigtails to contrast her pink skin.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Kid Hero Marinette/Ladybug sports her hair in two low bluish-black pigtails. In the switch from animesque to CGI the size of her pigtails was toned down.
  • Marinette's young friend Manon Chamack also has these, and it's more justified for her as she's only five.
• Molly of Denali: Trini is a young girl who has braided pigtails with beads.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot: Jenny Wakeman, the protagonist, is a teenage robot girl with pigtail rocket thrusters on her head. She has a cheerful girly personality and isn't immune to having childish or bratty moments.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends: Megan's younger sister Molly wears her hair in pigtails to contrast Megan's ponytail.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: As a filly, Starlight Glimmer had these.
• Oh No! It's An Alien Invasion: Lily, the youngest member of S.W.E.E.T., has these.
• Cylindria from Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, has black and pink striped pigtails.
• Bubbles of The Powerpuff Girls. While all the girls are the same age, Bubbles acts the youngest.
• Sashi Kobayashi from Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero also has this. However at the end of the Season 2 finale, she loses them
• In Ready Jet Go!, Mindy wears her hair like this, portraying her innocence.
• Both Spinelli and Gretchen of Recess wear pigtails, though neither one falls under the standard "girly" or "childish" archetypes: Gretchen is the geek of the group, while Spinelli is a Cute Bruiser Tomboy with a short temper, though she is (month-wise) the youngest of the gang.
• Angelica's pigtails in Rugrats seem to serve as a contrast to her true nature; the adults think she's a sweet innocent girl while she's actually a spoiled little bully.
• Kandi from Station X is the fashion-conscious one of the group, and has pigtails.
• Super Why!: Red, Jill and Joy wear their hair like this, fitting their childlike personalities as they're children (or baby, for Joy), despite Red being a tomboy. For Red's case, they turn into Braids of Action when she turns into Wonder Red.
• Total Drama:
  • Katie and Sadie are energetic, dramatic, cheery, and overall childish girls whose hair is tied into upstanding pigtails with hair ballies. The pigtails are paired with mullets to signify their love for the '80s.
  • Zoey is an only-child from a small town where she doesn't really fit in. Her short hair is done up in pigtails and accentuated with a flower, which signifies her Girl Next Door-style shelteredness and inexperience.
• Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: Kitty is the younger, more carefree, and excitable sister of Emma. Where Emma wears her hair elegantly loose, Kitty has hers tied into long pigtails with ribbons.
• Total DramaRama: The core cast are toddlers, so some of the girls have pigtails to signify their youth.
  • Courtney's short hair is done up in pigtails. Along with her pink shirt and Proper Tights with a Skirt look, the pigtails play into her conformist need to be the ideal little girl.
  • Gwen's hair is tied into upstanding pigtails, which would be adorable were it not for Gwen being a Creepy Child. As is, the way her pigtails stand up evoke the way arms that are raised to scare look.
  • The girl in the commercial for the Everything Horse in "Melter Skelter" has high pigtails coupled with a pink outfit to heighten the girlish cuteness needed to get audiences invested in the product.
• Transformers: Transformers: Animated:
  • Eight-year-old Sari has them, but keeps them even after she upgrades herself into a teenager. They're still there even when she transforms to robot mode.
  • Professor Princess, who's definitely childish.
• Winx Club: This was Musa's signature hairstyle for the first four seasons (short pigtails in seasons 1-2, long pigtails in season 3 and some of season 4), despite her identifying as a tomboy.
• Despite being at least 14, Hay Lin of W.I.T.C.H. goes through various forms of pigtails during the series. The comic does show her with her hair down at certain points, but for the most part, she has her hair up in pigtails.
• Daizy from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! has pigtails that resemble dog ears which are held up by flowers.
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: Yadina, the innocent, cute Cheerful Child, wears pigtails.
• Kimiko Tohomiko of Xiaolin Showdown sports this as her default hairstyle when not in Expository Hairstyle Change mode.

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