Today I will detail Kotori's hair. Kotori has neck-length hair that would look like blonde, but that's only when the sun hits her hair! You see, Kotori's hair is actually closer to a strawberry blonde because when her hair is not catching light it has a more orange appearance to it but when she's under some light then it appears as a blonde! There's also a clever trick with how the camera handles Kotori's hair. This is because the side that is shown in her sprite, the left side, shows a short braid and, while it would make sense for her to have the braid to symbolize respect and apprenticeship in the Engineering club that would be wrong, because Kotori actually has braids on both sides of her hair leadeing to it instead being a practical way for her hair to not get in the way of her work. Kotori's braids could also be an intentional trick in order for her to attract a look at her hair because when you see the braid of hair that will make the viewer think about wheat and show her hair more as a field of grain, which could go into the history of hair and how it was used culturally... But that's not the time. The shagginess of her hair, while likely caused by her work as an engineer, leads to the braid attracting even more attention because it is some semblence of order among the chaotic hairstyle Kotori has- there's also her ahoge, which appears to come from the back of her head and goes down at the end of her forehead. People talk about her glasses, but if you look at Kotori, REALLY look at Kotori, you will realize that she has set herself up to be an I-Spy puzzle, such as her tie being very improperly put up, or her overall skirt hanging a bit too low with the Millennium emblem showing just above her belly button, then there's the fact her coat has fur, which is very intriguing because while you might expect Kotori to use that now and again to cover her hair when it rains, there is a lack of hair in said coat fur which could mean that Kotori cares for her coat a great deal and makes it distinct from her hair. There is also her halo which sticks out for not only being a rare shape in a triangle but also looks like it has a number on the top part which while that might not be correct that would still work to Kotori's favor to make her as visually distinct as possible and ultimately makes her appearance feel a lot like a safety cone which, when combined with her long-winded diatribes means that it's incredibly likely she is meant to represent health and safety codes which could then amusingly lead to her teardrop glasses being a nod to read the fine print since said fine print may have information that will keep the item in as good condition as possible.
Kotori's cheerleading outfit has her braids still there but are a bit longer which implies that she is aware of her lack of need to have as much distinctive material on her so she instead chose to tie more of her hair up in these braids while also wearing what can be best described as pigtails. See, cheerleading requires a lot of flexibility which is certainly doable with rubber but when you are instead dealing with humans and especially humans whose best concept of flexibility comes from the additional features and deadlines in their projects you will want to have as much ventilation as possible for areas such as the neck. Her ahoge has also decided to be bigger which really shows just how ready Kotori is to cheer an encyclopedia to Millennium. Even when Kotori herself is attention-grabbing she manages to still make for an interesting exercise for those who look at her. In particular the quesstion mark on her cheer outfit is a good touch because if I'm not mistaken this is one of Hibiki's outfits meaning that Hibiki may have at one point sent this to Millennium's sports division for approval and never got a reply until she was put in command with making outfits meaning that a placeholder was put on Kotori's cheer outfit which gives the ever-expositive Kotori a mystery to her.
Kotori's hair and how it smells has a unique issue associated with it because while Kotori doesn't brush her hair she does still take good care of her hair, yet she's also an engineer which would naturally make her hair have sweat and grease in it as well as the relatively uncommon twice a week fire from fine-tuning engineering projects. But when Kotori is looked at as a whole then it becomes very obvious that Kotori would use an attention-getting scent that's pleasant enough to the nose so as not to have students leave from her smelling bad. Since pizza can't exactly go into hair product without seeming weird it would naturally make sense for Kotori to instead use a scent such as vanilla, so as to please the nose yet not distract from her explanation!