The ultimate showdown: What color is Miku's hair?

[uncreepy]

(Note: I tried to triple check if there was a thread like this already on VocaVerse or not and I couldn't find one.)



Okay, members of VocaVerse. It is up to you to decide what color Miku's hair TRULY is. Vote in the poll and also describe your decision in the comments in order to help convince everyone why you are undeniably right.

Will it be blue, green, teal, aqua... or something else?

Rules:
1) You must pick ONE legitimate color name to describe the color. Ex: "Blue" or "green". It can't be a vaguely in between color name such as -ish colors ("blue-ish green" or "green-ish blue") or half-something ("half blue, half green"), that is a cop-out and as the ruler of this thread, I will not allow it! You can use a word that I haven't listed, like "seafoam" or "cornflower blue" or something if you want.
^ Yeah, I know Crypton officially calls it "Blue-Green", but they are WRONG! And we will prove why!

...That's the only rule.
=========================================
My argument:
1) Miku's character item is a leek. Leeks are green.
2) Miku is known for yasai/vegetable juice. Which is green.
3) Miku's glow stick is green. Kaito's is blue (also, he has blue hair and therefore it means Miku can not also be blue.) < I know Len's is orange, he doesn't count.

Based on these facts alone, it is clear that Miku's hair color leans on the green side.
However, by accessing my eyes and my knowledge of colors, I will say that Miku's hair color is TEAL! (Not blue or green, the main two camps in the never-ending Miku hair color battle.)

Teal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Wikipedia page for teal backs up my argument (and includes swatches). Just look at its balance between blue and green. And no, I don't think her hair is "teal blue", that is far too blue. When I think of blue, I think of things like the sky or blue colored pencils. But Miku's hair clearly has a mix of green in it, kind of like water you'd see in a picture of pool water.

 

[Rylitah]

With all those Mikus grouped together, I'd consider it aqua. I considered teal at first, but looked both up and teal's too dark, so aqua it is. I think the brightness of aqua fits closer than the darkness of teal. (Edit to add: I never considered her hair green orz. I don't see any green in it at all aside from the way V2's shaded.)

 

[Leon]

Definitely teal or aqua. I always felt that Miku's color became green only because Kaito was already blue, like how Rin became orange to Len's yellow, yet her hair/clothes aren't orange. So Miku's character items etc don't mean anything in the hair color argument to me ^^;;

(Edited to reflect Rin as orange and Len as yellow -- previously mixed em up on accident)

 

[cafenurse]

I've always adamantly said blue but now that I'm looking at her official art again is does look more teal.
But....I've always said it's blue...
And I'm not ready to admit I'm wrong...

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

Smh, you all, her hair is clearly red. Get a clue.

(Jk. I think it's a seafoam green type of color.)

 

[___]

One thing is for certain.......it def isn't green.

 

[Aia]

I say it's between teal and aqua. Teal seems a little too dark and aqua is too bright to say it. I can't wait to see what the public says lmao

 

[GreenFantasy64]

No votes for green! I must change that!

Of course she has green hair you guys! I have been coloring her hair as green for over 14 years! She fits so well as green with Kaito blue and Meiko red. Primary colors~! Green as life that she gives to songs as Kaito is blue for making your heart soar, and red for Meiko as you feel passion on hearing the music that touches your heart!

Okay, I think I'm done now...

 

[mobius017]

Fun topic!

Long, boring, possibly pointless rambling

This is actually a really hard and interesting question. To begin with, her hair color changes depending on where you see her--lots of the figures, artwork, different generations, seem to have slightly different colors. Plus, how the heck do you get a single color for a person's hair? The color varies wildly depending on where you're looking--shadows are way darker than spots where the light falls. Where's the standard at? Combined with the fact that different lighting environments would make a difference, not just the shadows on the particular person. Plus, there doesn't seem to be any one universal color authority, the way there is for dry/liquid measurements, weights, etc. There may never be one absolutely right answer to this question, unless some authoritative body makes a framework for not just how to measure a person's hair color, but for standardizing color names themselves....

Having said that, I tried going to an authority. This is an online tool that will supposedly find a Pantone color based on picking a spot in an image. When I tried to pick spots that were most nearly Miku's "base" hair color (read: not shiny, and not shadowy, as is my personal assumption for what the rule for defining what a person's "base" color would be), the answer I usually got was "Green 0921 C." I picked a number of places, as I figured the scientific thing to do would be to test multiple spots to get some kind of average. There were a bunch of other colors, too, but I assume the one on the top left with an actual readable color name is the closest match.

But then again, Pantone is apparently mostly intended for printed colors, so.... *Throws entire preceding paragraph out the window*

(Actually, I guess the REALLY scientific thing to do would be to get a sample of multiple shiny, shadowy, and in-between spots and average them with some kind of color HEX value math or something. I'd strongly guess it's possible, but I have no idea how to do that. That might be the best scientific standard way of determining color of all.)

Having said all that, screw it. I'm terrible with colors, but I'll probably always call her hair "teal." I've done it before, I'll probably keep doing it; it's not green the way a leaf is green, and it's definitely not blue either. But I'm a writer, too, so I'll occasionally mix it up with "green," as well, just to avoid repeating myself.

 

[hamano]

If we take only Miku's boxart designs into account, I think the best term to describe her hair colour is cyan.


(But I call it blue-green)

I know Len's is orange, he doesn't count.

Len became orange to Rin's yellow

I see this misconception sometimes, and I can't help correcting you guys. Rin's character colour is orange, Len's is yellow.

 

[Leon]

I see this misconception sometimes, and I can't help correcting you guys. Rin's character colour is orange, Len's is yellow.

Bah you're right! Misspoke, my B. Can't believe I still manage to mix that up when we all know Len is the banana alfjsa;dlfj

 

[TheStarPalace]

I've seen Len's color occasionally be set to orange (in concert merchandise, etc) for some reason, which always threw me off.
Anyways, onto the issue at hand. I also call it teal because after reading all the color wheels and wikipedia articles, it just makes the most sense to me-I guess you could call it Tiffany Blue, too, but it is a bit closer to green. That cyan shade is pretty close though!

 

[lIlI]

In Photoshop, I colour picked the local colour of V2 Miku's hair as #8ad2d1. And the results...

By one point Miku's hair is slightly more green than blue. This means between the slight variations in official art and merchandise, her hair will definitely flip flop between the two colours.

 

[frankensalad]

From my understanding, the confusion over Miku's hair color comes from a difference in how colors are defined in Japanese VS how they are defined in English.

If I remember correctly, KEI was asked to imitate the color scheme of the Vocaloid2 UI which was black, gray, and "green". But Midori(green) doesn't mean the exact same range of the spectrum in Japan as green does in English, and it could more accurately be translated as "pale blue" (hence why the official English version of PoPiPo refers to the midori juice as "big pale blue juice"). Midori is considered a shade of Ao, which historically included everything from blue to green and even gray, and when the word midori was introduced, it was meant to help sequester SOME of the colors that are more traditionally considered Ao. This includes green and some of the lighter shades of blue. This is why a lot of things that we call green (green apples and green traffic lights) are called blue in Japan. Because they ARE green, but green is just a SHADE of blue, so both are true and green is just more specific.

So when KEI was told to make her midori, they were referring to the actual GREEN of the UI, but KEI just made her hair a shade of midori that he thought was more appropriate for her design. This is why lots of songs that come from the Japanese side of the fandom refer to her as green while others refer to her as blue. According to the Japanese way of defining colors, her hair is both.

 

[mobius017]

From my understanding, the confusion over Miku's hair color comes from a difference in how colors are defined in Japanese VS how they are defined in English.

If I remember correctly, KEI was asked to imitate the color scheme of the Vocaloid2 UI which was black, gray, and "green". But Midori(green) doesn't mean the exact same range of the spectrum in Japan as green does in English, and it could more accurately be translated as "pale blue" (hence why the official English version of PoPiPo refers to the midori juice as "big pale blue juice"). Midori is considered a shade of Ao, which historically included everything from blue to green and even gray, and when the word midori was introduced, it was meant to help sequester SOME of the colors that are more traditionally considered Ao. This includes green and some of the lighter shades of blue. This is why a lot of things that we call green (green apples and green traffic lights) are called blue in Japan. Because they ARE green, but green is just a SHADE of blue, so both are true and green is just more specific.

So when KEI was told to make her midori, they were referring to the actual GREEN of the UI, but KEI just made her hair a shade of midori that he thought was more appropriate for her design. This is why lots of songs that come from the Japanese side of the fandom refer to her as green while others refer to her as blue. According to the Japanese way of defining colors, her hair is both.

Dang, that's really interesting. Thank you!

 

[MagicalMiku]

turquoise color ^^

Turquoise (color) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[hamano]

(But I call it blue-green)

Actually it's better to call it just Miku colour (ミク色), that covers all hues within the usual spectrum of her hair colour.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I was originally gonna say teal, but the standard interpretation of teal as a shade in the west is much darker than Miku's hair colour. So perhaps it's more of a "light teal" or cyan?

 

[Prism]

It's cyan to me

 

[inactive]

Miku's hair is similar to a blue jay's feathers. They're both black, but they appear coloured because of structural colouration.