Temple of Ranma's Sailor Senshi Seifuku

I was wondering about something. Whenever Belldandy is showing herself as a goddess, and not a more normal-looking person, her hair is illustrated as being striped with black and white. Not that it necessarily is, but I can't find any examples of it in color; not even for the anime.

So, do you think her hair is normally black and white, black but very shiny, or something else?

I think her hair is a normally a light color, but when she uses her power, her hair might be shimmering.

if you send me a note with your email i can send you a couple of pics of her in color. she has brown hair.

That depends on whether it's from the anime or not. I've seen some manga illustrations in color, but none show the same color or effect that would show the reason for why she had black and white-striped hair in the manga. Her hair also changes when she removes her limiter, but I've never seen if it's white because it's white, blonde or glowing brightly.

Fujishima's colour artwork (covers, artbooks, etc) of Belldandy tends to range between grey to grey-ish brown and occasionally brown with no realy correlation between whether she is in "human" or "goddess" form at the time and often changes per volume. As for the "white and black" look, that was only for the very earliest chapters and artwork and went away by volume 2 IIRC.

The black and white-striped hair is shown at least as far as the volume where Velsper tries to stop time, which is in volume sixteen of the Dark Horse graphic novels. Not only in flashback, but in the present time, too. It's also shown that way in two flashbacks, in volume six and twelve, and another present-time example in thirteen, when Belldandy tried to convince Sayoko that she was a goddess.

Basically, Fujishima seems to be sticking with it. My best guess is that it could be possible if her hair is grey and has a metallic sheen, rather than the natural shine that hair typically has. You know, like the effect that you can see on shiny coins.

Crescent Pulsar R wrote:Basically, Fujishima seems to be sticking with it. My best guess is that it could be possible if her hair is grey and has a metallic sheen, rather than the natural shine that hair typically has. You know, like the effect that you can see on shiny coins.

Hmm... I had forgotten about the flashbacks and de-aging that happen in the Mystery Child / Velsper arc. Been years since I have read any of the older volumes. Yes, her hair does turn back to being depicted as black and white in those instances. Maybe this is how he is showing the "metallaic sheen" as you put it of Belldandy's true hair colour and not her "human disguise" and it just has not transitioned into any of the colour artworks.

Could be. I mean, the characters that have black hair don't have the striped effect, though they are certainly shiny in a natural way (natural for manga, anyway). And those with blonde or white hair don't show much in the way of shadows.

Now that I think about it, the grey color would make sense if it was Fujishima's intention to literally go between the white of Urd's hair and the black of Skuld's. And I do see a lot of colored illustrations, especially on the second edition novels, where Belldandy has grey hair.

(Speaking of second edition... Most of my graphic novels are first edition, and it seems like certain stories happened in different volumes in them, so the volumes I mentioned before are one volume off in the second edition graphic novels.)

Crescent Pulsar R wrote:Now that I think about it, the grey color would make sense if it was Fujishima's intention to literally go between the white of Urd's hair and the black of Skuld's. And I do see a lot of colored illustrations, especially on the second edition novels, where Belldandy has grey hair.

Agreed. It would fit with the trinity nature of the norns wouldn't it? Though where the animation gets the brown hair from, I have no idea.

Maybe it was too much trouble to cause the black and white effect without making it look like her hair was naturally that way. I checked the anime, though, and it seems like they went with grey hair when she released the seal on her power.