Has anyone ever noticed that couples with the same hair color RARELY get together in manga? Or the same hair shade? (Light vs. dark, mostly, since manga is generally black-and-white, and all colors come off on a monochrome scale from light to dark.)

There's this cliche that if one character has dark hair, their romantic interest MUST have light hair. I find this hilarious. Because where on Earth do things actually work like that, anyway...? Imagine if we actually went around picking people by hair color alone! (I mean, redheads are hot, sure, but...)

Does anyone know where this manga cliche came from, what its cultural origins are and whether there's any conscious or subconscious reason for it? Is it just part of the whole "opposites attract" thing? Or is there more to it? Is shoujo more guilty of this cliche, or shounen? Or is it shared all around?

It's gotten to the point where I jokingly said to a friend who also reads a lot of romantic manga: "Same-hair romance is the new same-sex romance: It's taboo." To which my friend replied: "When that love rival shows up, the girl should just say, 'I'm sorry, but your hair color isn't compatible with mine.' It'd save the poor bastard some trouble!"

Because it's true, isn't it? For example, in a shoujo romance with a light-haired heroine, the guy she ends up with will probably have dark hair (there's at least a 90% probability of this). But the rival guy that shows up and courts the girl will have light hair - and that's somehow a signal that they're NOT meant to be, and that's part of how you can tell that the rival's love will never really come to fruition. I can easily look at characters now and just pair them off by hair color, and I'm almost always right. Like. Nine out of ten times. Recently, while reading Strobe Edge, where I really sympathize with the love rival, I actually found myself thinking: "Sorry, dude, your hair's too light for this girl! Just give up and move on." I'd have patted his back sympathetically if I could.

Of course, there are exceptions to the different-haired cliche, like Kimi ni Todoke, but I do feel that in almost all the romance manga I have read, this is a real phenomenon.

Does anyone else think this phenomenon exists?

If you do, then... Does it amuse you? Annoy you? Both? And why do you think it's there?

... Heh! (Laughing because this whole thing makes me LULZ.)

Yes! YES!! D= I always wondered about this, especially in Shoujo. >___<

Hair color is like a dead give away of who the heroine will end up with if there's a love triangle. .__. Listing manga that follow this trend would take too long, and yet listing those that don't (strictly speaking for shoujo) would be hard to find. XDD

Strangely enough this cliche can also be found in manhwa, so I guess it's a genre/demographic thing, not so much culture. o-o

Yes, it does amuse me and annoy me at the same time. Anyone notice that the "bad boy" is usally the dark haired one? .__.

Ohh, hair color plays a role in BL as well. O-o More often than not the uke has a light-haired color and the seme a darker one. And with BL love triangles the uke is bound to end up with the dark-haired seme (or the light-haired one if the uke has dark hair). O_O Someone actually explained this one to me and it made perfect sense, forgot why though. X3

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Can't believe there's someone else who was thinking the same thing. : )) I also found myself wondering this while reading manga. There are times when 2 guys appear on the same page and you know they are going to be a big part of the manga and by knowing the main character's hair color you can actually detect who will be the the love interest and who will be the the "3rd wheel" in the story.
It doesn't annoy me but it makes it even easier to determine the end of a story which is already kind of predictabile.

e.g.
Girl: Do not insert any verb with a romantic connotation me!
Boy: Oh no you didn't just reject me! It can't be helped then.(I must have seen this phrase in over 90% of the shoujo I read) I will make you mine! etc. etc.

Why do they do it? It must be also some kind of "hair-determining-personality-traits" or something like that + creating an opposite of the heroine's traits (both physical and psychical). If the girl is innocent, pure-hearted, stupid, kind and light haired the guy must be a player, very smart, macho, sporty, flirty, bad boy and dark haired.

Oh a counterexample would also be [Akuma to Love Song](http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=11243). As far as I read she seems to like the black haired dude and she also has black hair.

[color=black]Does not compute.[/color]

I think it's more for practical reasons. To make the couple look more "diverse", instead of having the same hair color and all. I mean, just try visualizing a made-up manga couple and don't tell me you'd both give them the same hair color. 😮 It's just human nature, I guess? But now that it has been brought to my attention, I wouldn't make the same "mistake" as other mangaka. o.o

Also, you say that it doesn't happen in real life, but it usually does, no? Most couples don't have the exact same hair color, unless we're talking about asian (and other ethnicities) couples (who don't dye their hair), then you have no choice to have only one color. o_o

tl;dr? Does it matter? It doesn't bother me in the
least. Then again, I don't read much Shoujo (nor BL).

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There must be an ink fill balance on the page^^

Using too much ink for two dark haired characters.
I think you're more likely to find two light haired people then dark.

In the sidebars you can sometimes read how the authors complain about inking hair.

Plus, you don't want the characters to look too similar.
Maybe when they're kissing the hair may blend?

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I thought it was because manga is a greyscale medium, which seriously limits your choices. It's more to show the contrast than to show the actual colors - even if one of the characters actually has brown hair (as is often the case), if they're contrasted against black hair, of course they're going to be the lighter one - and again, greyscale = not much variety to pick from.

I recall recommending Illumination to someone and being told, "I can't tell them apart!" (It's a BL love triangle where all three have black hair and pretty minimal art to start out with, so... I guess I can't really blame her?)

It does annoy me, though. I wouldn't mind seeing more same-hair-color romance. ^^;

I always thought it was to make the couple more visually complementary. Kind of like if you wear a medium-shade shirt, you might want to wear a distinctly darker or lighter pair of pants, instead of something that makes all the colors blend together. ^^

It also occurs to me that similar hair color could make the characters appear too familial, i.e., genetically related. "Just friends" characters seem more likely to be cursed with the same hair color than outsider rivals, who often have a third hair color.

BTW, something mangakas love even more than hair color contrast is height contrast. I've rarely read a romance manga where both lovers are the same height. Someone always has to tower over the other.

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Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

Yeah, that's so true. It is also right with Yaoi.
This kind of stereotype is used for parents and children in shoujo manga.
For example in Nana: just because noone knows Nobuo or Takumi, who exactly is the father of Hachiko's unborn child so readers can only guess that based on their hair-colours ^_<
Both Takumi and Sa-chan are black while Nobuo and Hachiko's hair are light colour, so most of people think that Sa-chan is 90% Takumi's daughter.

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LOL This really amuses me sometimes.

I always joke around saying that I like the black-haired guys best. XD

But yes! I feel so sorry for the guy in Strobe Edge! 🤣

Maybe it's to help tell characters apart?
If there were two love rivals with the same hair color, it would be kind of difficult to the tell the difference between them unless there's a significant difference between them. It'd just look like they changed their hairstyle. (This is how it is with a lot of shoujo manga because ALL the guys always look the same...)

EDIT:
I have to say it though, 99% of shoujo characters are asian. They ALL have naturally black hair. 🤣 Though I guess they dye it...

I just thought of a prime example...Marmalade Boy.
The parents and kids both. LOL

♪MONSTARR~ will eat all your cookies and steal your bishies~♪ Φ_Φ

And here I thought I was the only one who thought this...

It annoy's me since I usually end up liking the guy she doesn't end up with like with.. and to name a few...

Stardust Wink - I want Anna to end up with Hinata most likely it'll be Sou

Strobe Edge - I want Ninako to end up with Andou most likely it'll be Ren

Nana - I want Nana to end up with Nobu she ends up with Takumi

Vampire Knight - I want Yuki to end up with Zero but so far it's Kaname

Parfait Tic - I wanted Fukko to end up with Ichi but it's Daiya

_
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After seeing this I started thinking about it more consciously while reading and I've realized this really isn't the case... I find it fairly balanced.

I can find tons of shoujo manga with dark haired couples. Light haired couples are harder to come by but it isn't as odd as you think.

If you want me to list I can but it IS a sorta spoiler...

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I think its more whichever guy or girl shows up the most, is on more covers, hard to get, and gets the most focus. Its pretty easy to figure out who will end up with who in most manga. I can usually tell from just the first few chapters. If I dont like it I drop it rather than continuing to read it and hopelessly root for a character who has no chance because they are a side character, walking plot device, and obstacle. Saves me the rage.

I am glad you brought this up - it has been bothering me A LOT lately. However, my observation is slightly different: Dark-haired guys are the 'love winners' while light-haired guys will be the rivals, the losers. Conversely, villains will also be light haired, while heroes dark-haired. It makes everything sooooo predictable, it pisses me off. Adding to this the complication of 'first sight imprinting' (i.e. the boy the heroine will lay eyes on/meets FIRST will be the one she ends up) and there is no mystery left whatsoever. I wonder sometimes, don't japanese readers who actually send letters to publishers and mangakas every tire enough of this to complain?! 🙄

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I am glad you brought this up - it has been bothering me A LOT lately. However, my observation is slightly different: Dark-haired guys are the 'love winners' while light-haired guys will be the rivals, the losers. Conversely, villains will also be light haired, while heroes dark-haired. It makes everything sooooo predictable, it pisses me off. Adding to this the complication of 'first sight imprinting' (i.e. the boy the heroine will lay eyes on/meets FIRST will be the one she ends up) and there is no mystery left whatsoever. I wonder sometimes, don't japanese readers who actually send letters to publishers and mangakas every tire enough of this to complain?! 🙄

I once heard a lecture on why most villains in manga are light-haired and fair skinned, in sharp contrast to the usual Western image of evil characters as "darker" beings. But, I forgot, sadly.

And I have noticed this! When I read the op, I thought, "so someone else noticed it too, eh?" I thought that I was crazy. I can usually tell who the heroine will end up with via hair color. But I think the impluse to pair a character with someone who has a contrasting hair color is natural. I do it a lot in my head. I know there are exceptions, but these are generally harder to find than the contrasting hair color couple. I can only think this is so because of an urge that we have to see opposites together. Which is ironic, since couples with similiar traits usually stay together longer than opposites (basically, we pick people that we see ourselves in).

But as long as the couple is cute, and I can tell them apart, I guess I don't really mind about hair color. It will just be one of those things that irks me every once in a while.