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Shy Blue-Haired Girl

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While blondes are foolish or innocent and redheads tend to be aggressive or evil, blue hair depicts a person being either shy or nervous, or even both. Either way, blue hair is very common in fiction, particularly in anime, and if the character has Elemental Powers, they are probably Making a Splash as An Ice Person. Because of this, they are often paired with, or contrasted with, a redhead or someone with fire powers or a very strong and passionate personality.

Interestingly, these people also tend to be the most rational or intelligent in the group, perhaps because being socially timid is associated with bookworms. Sometimes, they seem very aloof and stoic, tending not to make any friends of their own. If they are, they are usually revealed as having a kind, friendly nature. In this way, they are the direct opposite of a Fiery Redhead. A Red Oni, Blue Oni pairing can be made with them by making the redhead brash, strong, and passionate, and the blue one calm, quiet, and down-to-earth.

A Sub-Trope of Shrinking Violet. A Super-Trope to Rei Ayanami Expy. Compare True Blue Femininity.


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Shizuka Yoshimoto, Rentarou's #3 girlfriend, is a short, shy girl with dark blue hair that communicates with others by pointing at sentences in a book or through an app that reads said sentences aloud.
  • Afterschool Dice Club: Blue-haired protagonist Miki Takekasa is a serious, introverted high-schooler with subdued and repressed emotions who doesn't socialize much with her classmates until she starts acquiring friends and bonding with them over, among other things, playing board games and grows out of her shell.
  • Aoi Sakuraba from Ai Yori Aoshi, a blue-haired, gentle, and reserved Yamato Nadeshiko. This is in contrast to her fiery guardian, Miyabi, who has purple/mauve hair.
  • Nagisa from Assassination Classroom is a male example, albeit one who looks like a girl, even to the point of dressing up as one for a mission. He is a reserved, polite, and quiet boy, in stark contrast to his best friend and Fiery Redhead Karma in a Red Oni, Blue Oni sort of relationship. Nagisa is careful and contemplative versus Karma's brash, outgoing aggressiveness. Nagisa is also a phenomenally bloodthirsty assassin and hides it very well.
  • Ao in Asteroid in Love, who has an explicit blue Color Motif: a name that means "blue," blue hair in Girlish Pigtails, blue eyes, being level-headed, and is initially shy and quiet. Her shyness is milder than most examples here, however—her shyness is mostly manifested as a fear of speaking due to being teased for Open Mouth, Insert Foot in the past and getting flustered rather easily, but she is otherwise quite comfortable with social interactions.
  • BanG Dream!:
    • Kanon Matsubara is easily flustered and timid in social situations, and being dragged into joining Hello, Happy World by Kokoro is a major jump out of her comfort zone, but over the course of the series, she gradually becomes more outgoing and confident in herself, crediting the band with helping her change for the better.
    • Rokka Asahi also qualifies. A kindhearted girl who moved to Tokyo in the hopes of being in a band, she's unassuming in her daily life. CHU2's aggressive attempts to recruit her result in her panicking and running away, until she does ultimately decide to audition.
    • Mashiro Kurata's hair is actually mostly white, but with also a shade of blue. She's also shy and easily nervous much like Kanon and Rokka, and she has a low self-esteem. In fact, her epithet is appropriately named "Full Speed Astern".
  • Violette of Basquash! is the shy, busty Team Mom compared to her band and teammates, the excitable loli Citron and mildly Hot-Blooded Action Girl Rouge.
  • Black Clover: This is what Grey really is, once her Transformation Magic wears off. She's very shy about her actual appearance, so much that she's usually too embarrassed to interact with anyone in her true form.
  • For a male example, Ichijouji Ken of Digimon Adventure 02 fits - the boy genius becomes rather shy some time after his Heel–Face Turn. He gets better about this later, if the image songs and drama CDs are any indications.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Levy and Juvia both have blue hair. Levy is the smart and friendly type and Juvia has water powers, but also seems to be shy at times, at least around Gray.
    • Wendy is another example, being very innocent.
  • Megumi Tadokoro from Food Wars!, whose shyness turns out to be a crippling factor that hampers her from performing well as a chef, despite having an extraordinary talent.
  • Yuki plays this trope very straight in the movie Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. Her normal personality is more debatable. Though seemingly an Emotionless Girl, she has started showing some signs of emotion, including social awkwardness. Although some people claim her hair is a pale gray, it can also be seen as pale blue.
    • In comparison, Asakura Ryoko has the hair and eyes, but her personality does not fit any of the traits above. Given that she, like Yuki, is an Artificial Human, perhaps this was an intentional contrast?
    • The spinoff series The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, being set in the Disappearance-verse, also plays this very straight. Maybe even moreso, because we get to see more of Nagato's shyness firsthand.
  • Brought up in the company of adults ever since he was young, Touya Akira from Hikaru no Go tends to be somewhat awkward and shy around peers his own age. Although his hair is green in the anime adaptation, the manga colouration tends toward a dark blue tint.
  • Sara from Jewelpet Twinkle☆ has blue hair and is aloof and introverted, but is not really shy; she is, in fact, quite the snarker.
  • Shinobu Maehara of Love Hina. She has blue hair and a super-shy personality.
  • Love Live! has two examples. Umi is the more traditional example, having blue hair, a traditionally Japanese upbringing, and an aversion to showing off too much skin. Yoshiko from Sunshine is a Double Subversion. Though she seems like an attention hog due to her frequent melodramatic outbursts in her fallen angel persona, she's actually a shy, socially awkward girl who struggles to fit in with others when not falling back on that persona.
  • In Lucky Star, Konata's mother, Kanata, fits this trope, in contrast with her daughter, who does not (due to her father's influence).
  • Subaru Nakajima from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS may look like an inversion at first, but if you read the supplementary manga, you will discover that she actually started off as a textbook example of this trope and, over the years, developed into someone much more confident and outgoing, thanks to her idol, Nanoha, and her partner, Teana. As Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force flashbacks reveal, however, she still reverts to her people-shy ways when emotionally hurt.
  • Beginner from Mon Colle Knights has the blue hair and every opposite personality trait: extroverted, cheery, overly-relaxed in crisis situations, and the least intelligent member of the recurring cast. She can employ three out of the four cardinal elements, water being the exception.
  • Natsuki Kuga of My-HiME. You wouldn't know it at first, since she's also an Action Girl, but Natsuki doesn't like opening up to people, is highly self-conscious about other people walking in on her in the bath, even other girls (Mai in episode 25 and Shizuru in the directors cut of episode 26), and is easily flustered by personal attention, which Shizuru exploits for her own amusement.
  • Hinata Hyuga of Naruto has dark blue hair in the anime, and she has crippling shyness and low self-confidence in Part I due to her abusive family. She gradually loses her shyness and becomes more confident after the Time Skip.
  • Negima!:
    • Due to an Adaptation Dye-Job, this is inverted with Yue Ayase in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Starting out in the manga, she has blue hair with a cynical personality obsessed with philosophy, but eventually moves farther towards shy once she begins getting closer to Negi and her hair is changed to purple.
    • Nodoka Miyazaki in Negima!? gets blue hair (as opposed to the other series where she is a literal Shrinking Violet) and is really shy, a bookworm, and thinks with her head.
  • Rinna Charat from Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat is the smartest of the group and tends to be the quietest, although part of this has to do with her Sleepyhead tendencies.
  • Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon: Lana is a downplayed example. She generally has no problem socializing with the others, but she is less outgoing than Mallow and gets a bit flustered at first when she is asked to lead the class' fishing lesson. A flashback episode reveals that Lana was very shy when she was younger and that Mallow was the first girl she ever warmed up to.
  • Saya from Peacemaker Kurogane, though her being shy might also have something to do with the fact that she's mute and can't say anything, even if she wanted to.
  • Chrome Dokuro from Reborn! (2004). Though she shares her body with a man who is more psycho than shy....
  • Miki Kaoru from Revolutionary Girl Utena is a male example, being a gender-switched Expy of Ami Mizuno down to the same voice actress. Interestingly enough, his twin sister Kozue does not fit this trope.
  • Mizure Shirayuki from Rosario + Vampire; her is normally bluey-purple, but it does go full blue when she's An Ice Person.
  • Ami Mizuno from Sailor Moon is probably the best known example of this trope. She meets many of the trope's key traits. Upon her introduction, she's the aloof genius girl rumored to have an IQ of 300 (and is, in fact, at the top of the Rankings in exams for the entire country). Upon actually revealing her character, it's also revealed she's not aloof, just shy, and because she's so smart, other people stay away from her instead of the other way around. The live-action has her come out of her shell by being befriended by Usagi and the others as a plot point. The fact that she has powers over water is just icing on the cake. She's also sort of paired up with the fiery (in more ways than one) Rei due to the fact that Rei is the 3rd member to join the team and the two are Usagi's only reliable allies until Jupiter joins the team about 10 episodes later.
    • R season: first, in Bertier's Heel–Face Turn episode, the sponsor of a chess tournament speaks to Ami and notes how she used to be alone all the time, but now has made so many friends. Later, a Monster of the Week exploits Ami's secret insecurities to first frame her for cheating at exams (something that's serious business for her since she's the smartest girl in Japan), then try mind raping and brainwashing her into attacking her teammates. Finally, the R movie has her recalling how other kids used to trash talk her behind her back, thinking she was an Insufferable Genius - until Usagi came along and forced her out of her shell.
    • In S, Ami is greatly upset at the prospect of being seen only as The Smart Guy of the group and needs Mamoru, Michiru, and Usagi's support to try to dispel it...and she becomes the target of the Monster of the Week, which is after Ami's Pure Heart Crystal. In a Tear Jerker scene, when the monster mocks Ami's loneliness, Usagi stands up for her and tearfully declares how important Ami is for her.
    • In Stars, during her and Haruka's team-up, Ami remembers how, as a little girl, she wanted to play basketball, but the girls didn't dare to ask her join the team since she had too much to do, leaving her alone and sad. In a subversion, Ami later recalls how she became The Strategist of the team, which lets her find the Heroic Resolve to deliver the strategy that lets her and Haruka/Uranus win the fight.
  • Shin from Saint Beast is a male example being the intelligent and aloof-but-nice type.
  • Akira Sakura from Shadow Star is about as shy as this trope can get, to the point of suicidal Deconstruction. It turns out that she is shy and nervous because of sexual abuse at the hands of her father combined with a crippling social phobia.
  • Shamanic Princess: Although Lena's hair is actually green and Sara's is actually light purple, they both fit this trope as they are usually gentle and quiet-natured.
  • Sora in Sketchbook is so shy, most of her dialogue (all of it in the manga!) is Inner Monologue.
  • Tsubasa Kazanari in the beginning of Symphogear is shown as a terribly shy girl that's nervous even before her concert, with her Fiery Redhead partner Kanade Amou doing most of the talking and action and encouraging her. Then Kanade dies in front of her, and Tsubasa does away with the shyness and becomes a stiff, serious, cold fish. Over the series, she began mellowing her cold phase and becomes a Cool Big Sis to her 'juniors' in the same vein of Kanade to her, but the shyness is completely removed.
  • A potential male example: Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. But given the nature of the show though, he quite Giga Drilled his way out of the mold pretty quickly.
  • Male example: Shin-ah in Yona of the Dawn due to his lonely, isolated early life.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Incredibles: Violet is the only one in her family with black hair with plenty of blue highlights, and she's also the only one who is shy.
  • Inside Out has, naturally, Sadness, who is blue all over, always apologizing, and a bookworm, since Joy never allows her to do anything besides study the brain manuals. Averted by Joy, who also has blue hair, but is the complete opposite of Sadness.

    Films — Live Action 
  • Kimi: Angela has hers dyed bright blue at first. She's a shut-in and withdrawn from other people (though she does have a boyfriend). She dyes her hair pink when she finally goes out, cementing the relationship with the color blue with shyness.

    Literature 
  • In The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, Edwin-750 is perhaps the least assertive member of the Department of Problem-Solving, and has electric-blue Robot Hair.
  • Yoshino from Date A Live, in addition to being An Ice Person, is extremely shy and soft-spoken. She deals with this by communicating through her hand puppet 'Yoshinon' whenever the situation calls for a more extroverted approach.
  • Aria from Sister Princess is probably the most shy of all her sisters.
  • Mizore, the oboe player in Sound! Euphonium, is so shy that she comes off as an Emotionless Girl and more-or-less idolizes her one real friend, flute player Nozomi. Her blue hair is all the more salient given that the show otherwise features realistic hair colors across the board. Liz and the Blue Bird explores her character further, with Nozomi explaining that her shyness comes from a lack of self-esteem and difficulty expressing what she truly feels.

    Video Games 
  • Dragon Quest V has Flora/Nera. The most reserved and demure of the hero's three potential brides just so happens to be the one with blue hair.
  • Hajime of Ensemble Stars! is a male example (though his bob cut makes him often mistaken for a girl anyway) - he's very quiet and lacking in confidence, preferring to stay on the sidelines helping people out by doing chores and making tea. However, this is an idol game, so he learns to gain at least enough confidence to sing and dance on stage pretty quickly, even if that doesn't always extend to confidence in any other part of his life.
  • March from Eternal Sonata. She is more reserved than her sister but no more shy.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: White Magician Girl Ninian plays this almost perfectly straight. Her hair is more cyan than properly blue, but she is very humble and kind and has quite the problem interacting with people.
    • Seliph from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is a male example; he's quite the badass fighter, but is also extremely humble as a person and kinda scared of the prospect of being The Chosen One at the beginning.
    • King Pelleas from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is very much another Rare Male Example. And boy, does he suffer for it.
    • This is averted in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Out of the three prospect daughters for Prince Chrom, who will all inherit his blue hair, none fit in: Cynthia is a Genki Girl, Kjelle is a Tomboy, and Lucina is more serious than shy. And if a blue-haired second-generation female is the mother of girl!Morgan, she also averts it by being another Genki Girl.
      • Boy Morgan may fit in if he's fathered by either Chrom, Virion, Priam, or a blue-haired second-generation male, though.
      • If a blue-haired Male Avatar has daughters, only Noire will be a straightforward example. Though Yarne could potentially be a Rare Male Example, even if he only has a blue streak on his fur. This also applies if either is fathered by the blue-haired Virion, too.
      • A downplayed example exists in Inigo if he's fathered by Virion, a blue-haired Avatar, or Chrom: his flirtatious nature is exaggerated to hide his own shy insecurities, and to keep the others from losing morale. He was apparently very shy and timid as a child and when asking his equally shy mother for advice, she advised him to talk to women to become braver. He took that a little too far. He's still very shy when it comes to his dancing though and remains shy about it in Fire Emblem Fates, even when his hair has been magically turned gray to hide his identity and he's become noticeably Older and Wiser.
    • In Fire Emblem Fates, an Ignatius mothered by a woman with blue hair (like Oboro, Peri, Azura or a blue-haired Female Avatar) will be a straight-up Rare Male Examplenote .
    • Rinea from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is a downplayed example, as she's more of a reserved blue-haired girl, but she still rarely speaks her mind and is contrasted with the more outspoken Berkut.
    • Marianne of Fire Emblem: Three Houses easily fits, being sheepish, soft-spoken, and generally more eager to spend her time with animals than with people. She's close friends with the far louder pink-haired Hilda.
  • Downplayed with Dizzy from the Guilty Gear series. While she is relatively uncomfortable hanging around people, it's more due to the fact that she's a Gear and a wanted woman than anything else. When she isn't worrying too much about that, she's been shown to be quite personable, such as with the Jellyfish Pirates and with her eventual husband Ky plus her and Ky's son Sin.
  • Harvest Moon:
  • HuniePop has Nikki, an introverted retro gamer who initially uses outward hostility as a defense mechanism, but gets over it quickly. She remains very shy and somewhat nervous in social situations throughout the game. Through her dialogue options, she does mention her hair is dyed though. HunieCam Studio describes her as a 'shy nerd girl' and her clothing choices are more conservative than the rest of the cam girls.
  • Liara from Mass Effect. Although she has tentacles protruding from her head instead of actual hair, she could fit this trope indefinitely. Doubles as Fridge Brilliance in that although her entire race consists of blue/purple/green space babes, she is one of the few whose skin is a lighter shade of blue.
  • Another subversion comes from Need for Speed: Carbon. Yumi from Bushido is blue-haired, yet has a cheery personality.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Penny starts off as rather quiet and awkward around most people. This is revealed to be due to the bullying incidents at the Academy that led to her founding Team Star. She does become more outgoing and blunt after the player helps her out, though.
  • In Pokémon X and Y, Evelyn from the Battle Maison is the least confident of the four girls and has blue hair to match.
  • Serilly from Puyo Puyo is a blue-haired mermaid who is shy due to her paranoia of being eaten by most of the other characters, due to a legend saying that consuming mermaid flesh makes you immortal, but also interested in making new friends due to her loneliness.

    Visual Novels 
  • Vera Misham in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney hardly speaks and doesn't leave the house if she can possibly avoid it.
  • Shuichi Saihara of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is an Adorkable shy blue-haired guy. He has dark blue, almost black hair and is rather quiet and doubts his abilities as a detective frequently. However, he opens up more after taking his role as the true protagonist of the game.
  • Issei Ryudo in Fate/stay night is a male example. He's blue-haired, the most rational of the normal characters, and while almost all of his appearances are with his best friend, Shirou Emiya, he's said to be very shy.
  • Averted with Shizune Hakamichi from Katawa Shoujo, who is blunt and outspoken — despite being deafmute. Still worth noting, though, as when they're introduced, Hisao thinks she's one of these until she "opens her mouth," so to speak. The shyest girl in the cast, Hanako Ikezawa, has purple hair.
  • Mio from Little Busters! is a very quiet, soft-spoken girl with an emotionless personality who is almost always found sitting and reading on her own at the back of the school before Riki comes across her. He even notes at one point that, in complete contrast to him who defines himself by his Childhood Friends, she seems to long to be truly alone, and her presence is so low that people often seem to forget she even exists. Her route provides an explanation for all of this.
  • Mayumi Nakanobe from Sound of Drop isn't very sociable and only has one friend at the start of the series.
  • Chigara Ashada from Sunrider is shy, blue-haired, smart enough to build two Humongous Mecha by herself and singlehandedly maintain and upgrade an entire squadron of them, and would rather be running a bakery than fighting in a war. For bonus points, her best friend Asaga Oakrun is a Fiery Redhead.

    Webcomics 
  • Jolene “Brooksie” Brooks of Between Failures. From the cast page: She is shy, yet can be outgoing once she gets comfortable with her surroundings.
  • Kimiko Ross in Dresden Codak fits this trope to a T. She is easily one of the smartest people in an already highly advanced world, and is extremely logic-driven. She is constantly inventing crazy advanced technology, and even created several advanced prostheses for herself after getting half her body blown up. On top of that, she is very socially handicapped when it comes to new relationships, acting very clumsy and shy around boys she is interested in. And her hair is bluish black.
  • Tedd Verres in El Goonish Shive is a perfect male version of this, although it's purple hair instead of blue. He was especially shy during his younger years, though he has opened up somewhat since then. He is the smartest of the group and is constantly inventing or experimenting on stuff. And, for bonus points, he frequently transforms himself into a girl for fun.
  • Araceli of Hazard's Wake is very much this, though the shyness probably comes from being locked in a tower for most of her life.
  • Emily McArthur in Misfile is this to some degree. She has blue hair and is very intelligent, having already been accepted to Harvard before two years of her life were erased. She is only a little shy and it's not a large facet of her personality, but she definitely pairs well with Ash.
  • Mecha Maid from Spinnerette, while outgoing in her superhero guise, is extremely reserved outside of it. It doesn't help that she is physically incapable of being very expressive without her suit. She is a genius researcher and inventor, and her superhero wig is purple.
  • Inverted with Aster and Lily of Star Impact, who both are among the most outgoing and energetic members of the cast.
  • Taken further by Cherry Trau of Superego. Each character has a Color Motif associated with them, and not only their hair but their bodies will be that color. Cherry's is, of course, blue, and she's very much a Shrinking Violet.

    Western Animation 
  • Beavis and Butt-Head has Glennis from the "Weird Girl" episode. Her hair is dyed blue, she has a timid demeanor, barely speaks above a whisper when she speaks at all, has no friends whatsoever, and is widely regarded as a freak at her school. Though unlike most examples, she is able to confess her feelings for the one she has a crush on via written notes. Unfortunately, he crush is freaking Beavis who doesn't even know how to read and thus remains oblivious to her feelings.
  • Stormer from Jem is one of the two blue haired characters (the other being Aja, who doesn't count at all). She's the Token Good Teammate of The Misfits. Stormer is docile and a bit of a doormat, though Character Development helps her gain more confidence.
  • Willow of The Owl House has dark teal hair and is established in her first appearance as very shy and insecure due to being mocked for her seemingly poor skill at magic, as well as her broken childhood frienship with Amity Blight.
    • Downplayed somewhat in that Willow is established as shy and meek, but not only shows a temper in her first appearance, but growns more self-confident over the course of the first season due to Luz's influence and patching her frienship with Amity.
  • The Simpsons: Milhouse Van Houten is a male example. He's a common Bully Magnet due to his shyness, extreme gullibility and poor social skills, and has bright blue hair.
  • Several in Steven Universe:
    • Lapis Lazuli has dark blue hair, is rather reserved and aloof until you get to know her, and holds a lot of anxiety and depression within her due to past trauma.
    • Sapphire has fluffy light blue hair and is who Garnet gets the pensive and quiet nature from. Sapphire can get so focused on the future due to her ability to predict the future that she forgets to engage in the present, and is prone to anxiety because of this, as revealed in the song "Here Comes a Thought". Sapphire, much like her former Diamond, also speaks in a soft voice.
    • Blue Diamond has light blue hair and is the most melancholic of the four diamonds. She also speaks in a soft voice. Her serene aesthetic however hides a cold and vindictive side that she's not afraid to unleash if you cross her or her loved ones.


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