Tentacle Hair

"Check it out!
Thar she glows! She lights up the air
Check it out!
Her spectacular, tentacular hair"

— Third Impact, "Squid Girl"

A character, usually an anthropomorphic octopus or squid, but often an alien or monster of some kind, has tentacles in lieu of hair. Most of the time it's solely an aesthetic design choice, made to make the character more visually appealing. But sometimes it's prehensile and used for combat or quality-of-life purposes. The tentacles can completely replace their hair, or it can extend out of it, usually as an alternate form of sorts.

Prevalent in works on the human end of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism. Can also act as Alien Hair to show how bizarre the character or their species is.

Compare Hair Wings, Medusa, and Cthulhumanoid. For the purposes of the trope, tentacle beards and moustaches also count.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom:
  • Itona has several tentacles implanted onto his head so he can fight Koro-sensei, though it's ineffective against the teacher. Later, the number is knocked down to three so as to focus on speed, but it's still unhelpful.
  • Downplayed with Kayano/Akari. She has tentacles that almost appear to be on her head, though they're actually implanted in her neck.
  • Before fully mutating into his current appearance, upon finding out the scientists that experimented on him intend to kill him, Koro-sensei suddenly manifests tentacles all over his body, predominantly on his head, completely replacing his black hair with long, white tendrils.
• Monster Musume:
  • Suu has several pseudopods coming out of her head, which are still visible when she shapeshifts.
  • Octo has eight tentacles growing from her head to match the eight on her lower body, and they are just as dexterous. She often wears a hood that leaves only the two longest tentacles exposed.
• Squid Girl: Squid Girl herself has squid arms and tentacles for hair (though lacking the suckers), which are noted for speed, strength, and accuracy.

Comic Books

• Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Mimic the Octopus has his tentacles on the back of his head to evoke the image of long, wavy hair. However, he only has four of them, with the other four suction cups being on his hands and feet.

Fan Works

• Viridian: The Green Guide: Aito Ogawa has tentacles in place of his hair. Said tentacle hair becomes much longer, not to mention prehensile, after he is kidnapped and experimented on.

Films — Animated

• The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Harlequin Demon has three large tentacles for hair. They often wave about or curl up in unusual ways. They are just a few of the features that make his design incredibly bizarre.

Films — Live-Action

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Davy Jones has a beard consisting of cephalopod tentacles, which come in handy with playing the ship's pipe organ or murdering Lord Beckett's Dragon Mercer by shoving them down his throat and nostrils.
• Star Wars: Several alien species have these, with the Nautolans^note  Kit Fisto's species having many dreadlock-like tentacles, the Twi'lek ^note  Aayla Secura's species having two "head tails" that resemble pig tails, and Togruta ^note  Shaak Ti and Ahsoka Tano's species having two that fall forward around their ears and one that goes behind their head like a ponytail, known as "lekku" or "head-tails" among the latter two species.

Literature

• In Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, the human protagonist encounters a species of tentacled aliens who give her tentacle hair so that they can communicate with her more effectively.

Live-Action TV

• D'Argo from Farscape is a Luxan, a humanoid alien species who have both hair and tentacles on their heads. The males also have tentacles on their chin, which are apparently some kind of sex organ and very sensitive.

Video Games

• Balan Wonderworld: Lance's hair looks like a clump of drooping tentacles. This complements the tentacles emerging from his back.
• Pearl from Booty Calls has some octopus tentacles in her hair (she's a rough analogue of Ursula, but tentacle legs don't work that well in an NSFW game).
• Cuphead: The mermaid Cala Maria has an entire octopus adorning her head, its tentacles forming her hair. When she transforms into her gorgon One-Winged Angel form, though, these tentacles become live snakes.
• Friday Night Funkin': ENTITY: It was revealed by the devs that A.G.O.T.I.'s "hair" are actually prehensile tendrils◊ with the texture of fur, but not covered in actual hair. This happens to go for other digidevils as well.
• Going Under: Out of the merpeople seen in the latter half of the game, the octopus-ish girl has curly tentacles as hair, with the ends having suction cups on them.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Tentalus, the boss of the fifth dungeon, has some of its tentacles act as hair, covering its single eye. Link has to cut the tentacles to attack this weak spot.
• In Mass Effect, the asari race have densely packed tentacles/tendrils on their otherwise humanoid heads, where humans would have hair. In one conversation in the third game, local wisecracker Joker even asks your asari teammate Liara if she can "wiggle her head-tentacles." She pointedly refuses to answer.
• Octodad: Octodad has two small tentacles on his "face" that give him the appearance of having a mustache. This somewhat helps his human disguise, though not by much.
• OMORI: One of the Slime Girls, Molly, has two additional tentacles as part of her hair. Also downplayed with Marina, another one of the Slime Girls, who has smaller tentacle-like wisps on her head.
• PaRappa the Rapper: The Hairdresser Octopus from the second game has all eight tentacles as his hair. When in his "normal" blue form, they're low and wavy and look more like normal hair, but in his "crazy" red form, they're upright and disconnected from each other.
• Pokémon X and Y introduce the Pokémon Malamar, a vaguely humanoid upside-down squid whose tentacles act as hair.
• Splatoon: Every single Inkling and Octoling has tentacles as hair in their humanoid forms. They can even be cut and styled just like normal human hair, without harm to their squid/octopus forms (though Octolings have the side effect of their cut-off tentacles sometimes coming to life). Don't bother asking how the Octoling male's afro is supposed to work, though. The anemone-based characters like Annie and Harmony also all have tentacle hair.

Web Animation

• Dr. Crafty: Pepper, being a cephalopod mutant, has a set of uneven tentacles attached to her head that droop like large bangs of hair, and they function as additional arms when active. They tend to express themselves throughout her pose set, pointing and curling in all sorts of directions as she moves around.
• hololive: Ninomae Ina'nis, a priestess of Eldritch Abominations like Cthulhu, gained the power of huge tentacles that extend out of her hair. She hides them during streams.
  • Some of her hairstyles also feature tentacle-like bangs, though their exact nature is unclear. The only thing Ina has to say on the matter is that touching them is off-limits.

Web Original

• The Tower Tournament: Kakei's "hair" is composed of many tiny antenae that serve the practical purpose of picking up changes in air pressure.

Western Animation

• Futurama: The episode "Leela and the Genestalk" has Leela undergo squidification, a process that involves her transforming into a mass of tentacles. They initially extend out of her hair but said hair eventually turns into tentacles as well.

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