Prehensile Hair: Difference between revisions

[[File:Medusa slam 4440.jpg|link=The Inhumans|frame|... is how you get it to stay so silky smooth.]]

 

 

Sometimes people have a hairdo so big it seems like it has a mind of its own, and moves on its own accord. And then there are the people who have the ability to ''make'' it move. Characters with superpowers that allow their mullets to become murderous. To allow their ponytails to pummel. To allow their pigtails to pick fights. To allow their braids to barrage. [[Overly Long Gag|To allow their... OK, I'll stop now.]]

Compare [[Expressive Hair]], which is when a coif is more inclined to telegraph emotions than to strangle random passersby—although there can be considerable overlap between the two. Even when this type of animate hair isn't in motion, it tends to look like its inanimate cousin [[Messy Hair]].

 

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

* A Skittles advertisement features a man in a job interview who possesses a long prehensile beard. He uses it to pick Skittles off a table and place them in his mouth and the mouth of his interviewer. Neither character refers to the beard.

 

* ''[[Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo]]'': Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo—although that's ''nose hair'' in his case. {{spoiler|Also chest, leg, armpit and head hair in the case of Bobobo's relatives (one type of hair for each).}} This comes from his ability to communicate with hair, which is only shown in a flashback in the first episode with his afro telling him that he's some kind of freak for being able to talk to hair.

* A minor villain from the beginning of ''[[Inuyasha|Inu Yasha]]'', Yura, has the ability to animate [[People Puppets|people like puppets]] and [[Razor Floss|cut things]] using Prehensile Hair. Unlike most examples of this trope, Yura could actually add the hair of her victims to her Prehensile Hair, which she kept as a giant hairball rather than it being connected directly to her head. This was because Yura herself was not a person, but [[Soul Jar|actually a demonic comb]].

* Sumi from ''[[Moetan]]''.

* Eve from ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'' uses her [[Shapeshifting]] abilities to use her hair as a weapon. Mostly she turns it into hammers, but it has also become spikes, fists, blades, porcupine quills, and a bell like the ones used in boxing matches.

* When afflicted with the curse of the Dragon's Whisker (which makes mens' hair grow uncontrollably until they lose it completely,) Ranma from ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fought Genma and Happôsai by tying his meters-long hair around cinderblocks, truck tires, park benches, and other such blunt instruments, to swing as giant flails.

* Menou Sakura (and later, {{spoiler|Kage Houshi}}) from ''[[Flame of Recca]]''.

** Ring-Ring from the same cartoon is very prone to attacking people with her magically stretching [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|blue hair]].

* In ''[[Petit Roid 3]]'', Kirara is a [[Robot Girl]] whose hair is not just prehensile but can take many shapes, including a pair of radar dishes, [[Helicopter Hair]], or a [[This Is a Drill|drill]] covering her whole head. Oh, and [[Naughty Tentacles]] too... it's a [[Hentai]] manga.

* Kejourou from ''[[Nurarihyon no Mago]]'' uses her hair to attack and bind enemy Youkai, usually to allow Kubinashi to finish them off.

* ''[[Fairy Tail]]''

** Flare Corona can not only extend her hair to ridiculous lengths and block most forms of magic, but also transform it into a wolf.

** Vivaldus Taka from Trinity Raven can also use his long hair to attack, as well as absorb water attacks with it.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Dorcas "Godiva" Leigh of [[The DCU|DC Comics']] ''[[Global Guardians]]''. Her hair goes beyond just being prehensile; she can reshape it into forms she can use, eg. [[Hair Wings|wings]], a fan, etc. Likely [[Magic Hair]].

* A [[Marvel Comics]] mutant named Wyre can do this with his body hair. [[Squick]].

* Justice Force member Metalhead (''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'').

* Weirdbeard from ''[[Empowered]]''.

* Tinsels power from ''[[Dreamkeepers]]'' is this.

* Cebolinha/Jimmy Five from ''[[Monica's Gang]]'' has only five spiky strands of hair, which apparently are sharp as wire (injures people, pops balloons and balls, and once, when the hair was overtly big, his [[The Pig Pen|dirty/aquaphobic]] best friend used some plastic to turn it into an umbrella).

 

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[The Mad Scientist Wars]]'', Jane Narbon recently invented a "hair symbiote" that gives her this ability. How it gets the necessary leverage and tensile strength to lift people and swing objects is [[A Wizard Did It|unexplained]].

* In ''[[Keepers of the Elements]]'', [[Alpha Bitch|Heather]] is given this as a secondary ability.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* In the first trailer for ''[[Tangled]]'', the character of Rapunzel beats up a thief trespassing in her tower with her hair. However, this scene (nor actual prehensile hair) [[Missing Trailer Scene|does not appear in the movie.]] Though Rapunzel is absurdly adept at flinging locks of hair around to pull levers, etc., so it sort of borders on this in the film.

* In the 2007 movie version of ''[[Beowulf (film)|Beowulf]]'', Grendel's mother (interpreted here as a [[Horny Devils|sexy siren]] rather than the original's poorly described ogre-like thing) has a long braid that can move on its own. It's implied to be the tail of her true, rather more monstrous form.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[The Bride with White Hair]]'' can use hers as a whip. The white-haired witch in ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]'' is an homage to her.

* This is used in the original version of ''[[One Missed Call]]''. (Not sure about the remake, never bothered watching it...)

* In the J-Horror movie ''Apartment 1303'', the main ghost, Yukiyo, can do this with her hair.

* ''Hair'', from the horror anthology ''Body Bags'', features Stacy Keach receiving a hair transplant operation, which turns out to be {{spoiler|an alien parasite that bites him after he plucks a hair from his ''tooth!''}}

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Discworld]]''

* In ''[[The Saga of Seven Suns]]'' by [[Kevin J. Anderson]], the Ildiran Mage-Imperator has an immensely long ponytail which can be used to strangle people who know too much.

* Deirdre of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' has ''bladed'' prehensile hair. She can dice you up into little chunks with her hairdo. She is not a nice person.

* The main character of children's book ''The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School'' has hair that not only is twice her size, but acts of its own accord.

* In Yasmin Galenorn's The Otherworld Series, Smoky the Dragon has long, silvery hair that he sometimes uses as [[Naughty Tentacles]] during funtimes with Camille.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* There was an episode of an anthology show (probably the revived ''Outer Limits'') in which a balding man grew a crop of long, luxurious hair after trying a new rub-on tonic. The hair turned out to be mobile, because each hair was actually a thread-like larval alien, and they were eating his brain.

 

* The ''futakuchi'' of Japanese myth is a seemingly anorexic women with an extra mouth on the back of her head that eats twice as much. Her hair supposedly acts in the manner described to put food in the extra mouth.

 

== Puppet Shows ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** In the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' setting, the Seven Sisters use hair in melee and for delicate manipulations (e.g. in ''Silverfall''). Not ''too'' impressive, as they're so stuffed with magic that tend to spray silver fire [[Bloody Murder|whenever seriously wounded]]... and were born as semidivine beings to begin with.

** The ''Ultimate Magic'' sourcebook for ''[[Pathfinder]]'' includes the Prehensile Hair hex, which allows a Witch to animate her hair as a limb, and the Strangling Hair spell, which does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

* The Wu-Keng of ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' can acquire a demonic gift which makes their hair prehensile. Given the Wu-Keng were inspired by the same Wuxia material as ''Pathfinder'''s White-Haired Witch, this isn't surprising.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* Krystal from ''[[Wild 9]]''

* Dixie Kong from the ''[[Donkey Kong Country (video game)|Donkey Kong Country]]'' games.

* Millia Rage of ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' has this in spades, able to move and shape her hair however she pleases. Forming it into various stabbing implements is just the tip of the iceberg.

* ''[[Rocky Rodent]]'', a fairly mediocre SNES game where the main character was a [[Funny Animal]] of some sort with a mohawk that could slice and even be thrown as a boomerang. Various powerups gave you different hairstyles with different powers.

* Emerelda Kasim from ''[[Xenogears]]'' often reshapes her hair to use in melee combat. Granted, she does this because she is entirely composed of nanomachines, and uses other parts of her body as well, but she does seem to favor the hair.

* In ''[[Eternal Fighter Zero]]'', Akane Satomura uses her long hair as her primary weapon, forming it into whips, drills, and swords.

* [[The Quisling|Lionwhyte]] in ''[[Brütal Legend|Brutal Legend]]'' has a ridiculously over-the-top hairdo which can transform into a pair of wings, allowing him to fly.

* In the NES pirate game ''[[Kart Fighter]]'', Princess Peach has a hair attack.

* Filia from ''[[Skullgirls]]'' has a hair parasite, named Samson, who acts as this for her.

* Myuse from ''[[Tales of Xillia]]'' uses her hair for extremely quick and painful melee attacks when she's not busy nuking the party with elemental magic.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Everyday Heroes]]'', [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=73819 Carrie Pelosi] has hair that reflects her moods. (Note that this is not the same as [[Compressed Hair]].) She can also use it to wield a [[Hyperspace Mallet]], or [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=200914 get someone's attention.]

* Mistress Stress from ''[[Yamara]]'' has her [http://www.yamara.com/yamara/rfw/rfw03.html Stress' Sunblocking Hairy Cantrip]. Repeated use has some... side effects.

* [http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20091002 This guy] on ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del|Ctrl Alt Del]]''.

* Miss Futakuchi, the history teacher in ''[[Eerie Cuties]]''. An incarnation of the japanese myth in the Myths & Religion section.

 

== Web Original ==

* Dr. Tenent, a physician and teacher in the Magical Arts Department of Whateley Academy in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. She often does the medusa bit to handle multiple medical instruments at once.

* Slipknot and Dreadlocks, from the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', both have this superpower. Slipknot can only manipulate his hair in this fashion. Dreadlocks is a [[Rubber Man]] who can stretch his entire body in addition to his hair.

 

== Western Animation ==

* Sedusa from ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''.

* An episode of ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' featured experimental prehensile facial hair as starcrossed lovers. ''Really''.

* The fish head and hair monsters made by Dr Barber in ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]'' episode "Fish Heads".

* [[Ben 10]] minor villain Frightwig (of the Circus Freaks) has prehensile hair with metal weights at the end of each "tentacle" which she uses to bludgeon opponents.

 

== Real Life ==

* Yes, there was actually somebody in [[Real Life]] that could do this. 19th-century French actor Pierre Messie was able to make his hair stand, fall, and curl. He could even make one side of his hair go up and the other side stay flat.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anime Hair]]

[[Category:Hair Tropes]]