Maroon? Ah, I can see that too. Although, I thought violet was supposed to be the reddish purple, while indigo was the blueish purple..

Good point about Saionji's hair. Green is the colour of grass and nature, and it does represent youth, and life. I normally associate green with those things, but for some reason when I think of Saionji, I forgot. Maybe because of his personality or just that his hair is a pretty dark green.

Alright, let me take a crack at this. This keeps getting longer as I write this, so I'm just going to cover Touga for now. Wiki links scattered throughout.

I always find that Touga's hair color seems pretty straightforward. Red is the color of passion, lust, love, particularly in English heraldry. It's a very strong color, but at the same time it's a typical color for a rose to be. Whenever you think of a rose, you automatically think it's red. When girls think of a prince, they'll think of Touga. Yet, the only red you see on his dueling uniform is on the trim and the other decorations. Now, I know that idea is that the jacket is white(symbolizing the prince), but he's the only one that isn't wearing pants that match his hair. (I'll get to Juri's coral/salmon shenanigans later)

Let's look at a few social and cultural references and see how they relate to Touga. In Christianity, red is the color for the Pentecost, which occurs 50 days after Easter. Oddly enough, the date range for this is between May 10 and June 13. Touga's birthday is June 4th, which is where Pentecost fell last year. The holiday celebrates the day that the Holy Spirit(Dios?) appeared to the Apostles(Duelists?). In Italy, it's traditional to have red rose petals fall from the ceiling of the church.

Also, red is the color associated with Wrath, one of the seven deadly sins.

Red is the color associated with the Muladhara, or root/base chakra. It corresponds with instinct, security, survival, and basic human potential. Now, the funny part is that it's located between the genitals and the anus. It is also associated with giving spiritual energy a physical manifestation.

YamPuff wrote:

So...if blue implies calm and purity, etc. wtf is Kozue doing with blue hair and eyes?

Kozue is calm...until she sees some baby birds or brothers in danger.

Kozue's hair is mostly blue. Meaning she is overall very calm. But her hair isn't really blue, it's purple. A very light, very blueish shade of purple. So this would add in red, passion, something we can all agree Kozue has.

In the movie, however, Kozue's hair becomes more of a green-blue than a purple-blue. This adds in envy. Umm, bathtub attempted homicide? Yes, movie Kozue's hair was spot-on.

Last edited by dollface (03-12-2007 05:44:42 PM)

I agree about Miki and Kozue's hair colours. The fact that they're twins and their hair colours are even different shades, seems to represent different aspects of their personality. Actually, Miki's hair looked closer to a medium, kind of cyan blue. (Closer to yellow, but also kind of in the middle?) While Kozue's is closer to red/purple. Hers' is also darker.

Pinkish purple, huh? Heh, I can never get all of the different colour names for Shiori's hair right. I wonder how that goes with orange, though? The Utena/Anthy parallel works well.

Eh maybe it's the whole cops thing but I've associated blue with justice, as well as intellect and creativity(last two are definitely Miki to the nines sorta). Mostly this has to do with connections to the sky really. If you can construe intellect as reason then we come to Miki's duel. ;;;

Anyway the way I see it the characters personalities seem to better correspond with the meaning of their rose colors. Red stands for romantic love, orange/coral being passion, yellow for gratitude/admiration, and the rest of ROY G BIV doesn't seem to have meanings attached. Though pink is innocent love or affection and white is pure love. White and red roses supposedly stand for true love, red and yellow stand for happiness, and pink and yellow for friendship... I think. I work right next to the store's floral department so I see the little cheat chart constantly.

How do we reconcile pink with Mikage, tho? Even Nemuro really doesn't fit any of the "pink profiles."

Nemuro lacked passion, but did Mikage? He had kind of a cold passion towards Anthy!Mamiya. Or Tokiko. Or whoever.


I'm still not sure any of the pink profiles work for Mikage.

Raven Nightshade wrote:

Red...located between the genitals and the anus

Bwhaahahahaha. Wins.

Maybe that's why Akio kinda adopted red.

As for Mikage, I would agree he's supposed to remind us of Utena. It seems odd they made a point of having a significantly older male character be her height. That just doesn't seem like a detail that would be thrown in on its own, when there'd be no reason under heaven to make him anything but around Touga and Saionji's height. If they wanted to downplay his machoness and go with nerdy wuss, they still could have done that without making him so short.

Just a random thought...I wonder if Nemuro was something of what Utena would have become without meeting her prince? The odds she'd actually have killed herself are slim, it's far more likely that for different reasons, but just the same, she'd be a complete emotional void. Trudging through life without purpose. Akio gave her that purpose where Mikage received none except to be a machine, although ultimately, they're both used as such.

On the subject of colors though, I did notice before that the coloring of his uniform is almost like a colorswap of Miki's, who I also tend to relate him to since they have genius in common.

It's been pointed out green's a natural color...when I was watching the series that occured to me when he was out camping in Nanami's Egg. Seemed fitting the green-haired character would be the sort to do that.

Hey, no-one mentioned Tsuwabuki (sp?). Notice he has brilliant yellow hair while Nanami's is a more pale sort of blond. Her hair doesn't exactly match her rose color unlike the other duelists, if I remember correctly.

You know, I've been wondering about that one too.

Despite the different shades of blonde, they look pretty similar. Perhaps it is because Tsuwabuki wants to be like a big brother to Nanami?

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

You know, I've been wondering about that one too.

Despite the different shades of blonde, they look pretty similar. Perhaps it is because Tsuwabuki wants to be like a big brother to Nanami?

I wonder if having the same hair color is significent. Miki and Kozue are brother and sister and have the same hair color, but Touga and Nanami don't look anything alike at all. Utena and Mikage have the same hair color and are the same height. And then you have Nanami and Tsuwabuki who are both blond. None of the hair colors are exactly the same shade though. Its as if having the same color indicates a special relationship between the two people. Also, Nanami's henchbitches (gotta love that phrase) all have brown hair.

Yay food for thought.