Two-tone tresses of hit anime/manga inspire line of easy-use hair products.
There’s no hotter manga/anime franchise in Japan these days than Demon Slayer, a.k.a. Kimetsu no Yaiba. Being serialized in manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump means four times a month fans rush to the store to pick up the latest chapter, and the collected volumes are also perennial sales chart toppers.
One such fan is our Japanese-language reporter Ayaka Idate, who’s especially taken with Demon Slayer’s master of medicine and swordplay Shinobu Kocho.
▼ Shinobu Kocho
Like much of the Demon Slayer cast, Shinobu has a pretty unique hairstyle, and more specifically unique hair coloring. Series creator and artist Koyoharu Gotoge likes to give his characters a two-tone look, and in Shinobu’s case that means vivid violet accents at the tips of her tresses.
However, while Ayaka’s natural hair color resembles most of Shinobu’s, our reporter was born without any purple accents.
▼ Ayaka
But luckily for Ayaka, Demon Slayer characters have ample ardent admirers for the creation of an official line of one-day hair-coloring wax, with seven characters represented. So after a quick trip to her local Don Quijote discount retailer, Ayaka returned home with a container of Shinobu Kocho Purple Demon Slayer Styling Wax.
▼ The wax can also be bought at branches of anime specialty store Animate and the Jump Shop, plus on website Premium Bandai here starting April 7.
Japanese styling wax is pretty similar to hair gel, though usually less liquidy in consistency. Opening up the canister, though, Ayaka found that the Demon Slayer wax (which sells for 1,980 yen [US$18.50]) is on the watery side for wax, which makes it especially easy to apply.
Using both her fingertips and a comb, Ayaka began working the product onto the tips of her hair, and sure enough, it began to change!
However, while the color combination was different from Shinobu’s, Ayaka too had two-toned hair before she started her anime makeover. Our reporter had already bleached her tips, and since the Demon Slayer Styling Wax seems to be formulated to work best on black hair, the resulting color was a little different when she applied it to her blond tips versus the natural deep black of the rest of her hair.
Still, Ayaka pressed on, and while the final result may not be a 100-percent match to how Shinobu appears on the cover of Demon Slayer Volume 6, the results are still eye-catchingly cute and stylish.
As mentioned above, this isn’t hair dye, but a one-day coloring product. At the end of the day, Ayaka followed the instructions on the package and rinsed her hair with warm water, then shampooed twice. When she was done, her hair was back to its normal color (except for her already-bleached tips). Warm water and soap had also completely removed any stains from her hands and brushes immediately after she’d applied the wax, and since it dries in only about five minutes, styling her hair was a snap too.
That ease of application and removal really is a big selling point. Ayaka is enough of an anime fan to want to spend a day with the medium’s bold hair colors now and again, but it’d be a bit much on a permanent basis. But with her Demon Slayer wax, she can quickly dip her toes in the anime hair lifestyle whenever she feels like it.
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]
Follow Casey on Twitter, where he used to have Kisuke Urahara’s hairstyle.
[ Read in Japanese ]