The day has come... Today I want to talk about Hina and her hair. Hina’s hair is a pure white that, when let loose, goes down to her upper calves. It is wavy bordering on curly, but mainly wavy, seeing how it catches the air, or can be put into a much shorter hairstyle. Hina’s hair is recognizable enough that some like to put her with Iroha and NiyaNiya, due to the similarities they have with their hair having a fluffy appearance. In Hina’s case, the fluffy hair, supported with the white color, gives her hair a sheep-like appearance, making her appear calm to the point of seeming nearly unshakable when combined with her natural expression. Her hair grabbing the wind and flowing almost wildly does a good job at indicating Hina’s role at being the binding force that keeps Gehenna from devolving completely. The little ponytail that she has that rests on her horns, being about hip-length (I am using chibis to get a good view of this) could then be indicative of the bits she can control, and the somewhat futile efforts at completely reining it in. There would have to be a special occasion that gets the rest of the student body to not destroy the campus in one day to even have a hope of bringing things together. The ponytail is likely done to provide some cushioning for her head as it rests against something like a chair, a cushion, or someone’s arm or lap, seeing how it would otherwise likely be uncomfortable to rest on, though Hina has likely gotten used to this, so perhaps it’s simply her attempt at having some control over her hair and by extension, her daily activities.
Before going on to Hina’s swimsuit, it is important to go over Hina’s hair accessories, since there’s enough of them that consolidating it into one section, even if it’s multiple paragraphs, should help with the flow of today’s piece. The first, and most obvious, albeit unorthodox, hair accessory that Hina has, is her horns. That will be covered in more detail later due to how much is going on with her horns. For now, in the case of her hair, know that it helps hold her normal appearance’s ponytail in place, and is that her bottom-left horn holds her dress outfit’s bun in place. The second hair accessory in Hina’s hair is a black ribbon with red stripes. This appears to be tied up in a normal pattern, and also seems to be the thing holding her hair in place between her horns. Unfortunately, this means that getting a good look at it is impossible, since it’s too deep in her hair and horns to see much else other than the fact it exists. The next accessory is a strange one, due to it either being one accessory or two accessories; I will refer to it as two accessories, assuming that they are just joined together and can be detached. The first accessory is a gold set of hairpins on her right side, likely to hold her hair in place so she can more easily aim and fire, though her hair is naturally symmetrical so it might simply be for her outfit’s appearance. The second accessory is admittedly very strange, but appears to be two rings with a chain attached that goes down to her uniform. The upper ring is slightly smaller, attached to the lower of her hairpins, while the lower ring combines her upper ring and chain into one accessory. It makes it look almost like a monocle, but that doesn’t make sense. I don’t actually know what this is, but it’s certainly a unique accessory.
The accessories in Hina’s hair when she wears her swimsuit is actually quite similar to her normal outfit, but mirrored and moved somewhat, as well as being simplified somewhat. Her hairpins are now red as opposed to gold, and are on her left side as opposed to her right, likely due to this being the hand she one-handedly wields her gun with, implying that she’s aiming with her left eye as opposed to her right eye. This opens up a can of worms going into Hina potentially being ambidextrous, which will, like her horns, be explored later. For now, it’s likely that she uses her left hand for shooting and her right hand holds her flotation device to more accurately land hear anyone potentially in distress in the water; that is why her hairpin is on the left side of her head as opposed to the right, and why she’s aiming with her left eye. The other accessory that Hina is wearing is a smaller hairband which is also on her left side, tying her hair into a ponytail. This one is harder to explain, but may have something to do with her not wanting all her hair to be directly behind her, while also not wanting her hair to go all over the place and potentially interfere with her swimming abilities. As for why she didn’t tie her hair up on both sides if this were the case is a mystery, but might have to do with how she’s holding her flotation device in her right hand, meaning Hina wants to have as little interference between where she is and where its destination is.
Finally, there is Hina’s dress outfit, since her nightwear doesn’t have any accessories on it. Ironically, Hina’s formal attire is the most simple, as she only wears a black ribbon that ties her hair into a bun. This ribbon, unlike her normal outfit’s ribbon, seems to be longer, as well as simply being black.
With the accessories done, now Hina’s various outfits can be described. As mentioned before, Swimsuit Hina has her hair in a ponytail on her left side, but this ponytail is different due to it being as long as the rest of her hair in her normal outfit. It’s hard to tell since the best representation of this is her in-game model and memolobby, but both put her hair nearly at her ankles as opposed to her calves. Hina’s hair length truly is an enigma, since this doesn’t makes much sense, but that’s better explained later. This would help Hina have a lot less hair directly behind her and instead on her side, though it might be enough for her to have her center of gravity on her left side if her hair is wet. Outside of the ponytail, her hair is more or less the same, with her hair hanging over the device, but her hair flows too much, catches the air too well, for her to have gotten into the water. It does give the appearance of a land-dwelling animal, like a cat or sheep, not wanting to enter the water because their hair will get very heavy and become a massive hassle to dry off. One final note is that Swimsuit Hina’s hair has a very slight, almost unnoticeable, pink tint to it which doesn’t appear in any other style. This can be confirmed by putting sHina to the left of Hina in the formation select screen. This one is likely due to the ring likely blending in too much with her normal hair, so it was decided to have her hair be a shade of pink as opposed to the normal white. This has a very clever way of working, too, since her memolobby being cast in the twilight means that the pink tint works as something of a reference to that.
Hina’s dress outfit is why it doesn’t feel right for her hair to have that much of an inconsistent length. It’s entirely likely that this is a trick of angles and the general difficulty Hina’s hair length is, to the point of her being a fluffy ball of hair is much easier than mighty, cape-like locks that catch the breeze while also going every which way, but it’s how well done her hair is that makes me doubt this potential inconsistency. It’s a question that has been forgotten until now: What is the hair styling scene in Kivotos? Perhaps I’m simply underestimating Hina’s ability to clean up after herself, or overestimating the hair she has as being too crazy to ever have order brought to it, so she went to a hair stylist sometime before putting on her dress. This quickly devolves into insanity, so I will digress. Hina’s hair is tied up into a mighty bun, having an almost beehive-like style because of just how much hair is in the bun. Hina’s hair is also an interesting departure from other appearances, in showing an orderly, neat set of hair as opposed to a chaotically long and flowing hair. To bring things together, if her hair is normally sheep-like in how it almost appears like wool, then her dress outfit is her hair becoming a ball of yarn. There might be some meaning behind it, but it likely is just meant to be something of a juxtaposition and somewhat idyllic. A Gehenna where there is no chaos for once, and something that Hina is able to put herself towards that isn’t the daily routine of cleaning up everyone else’s mess. Maybe not for her sake, but for someone else’s. True peace will never be known in Gehenna, sure— there’s some loose ends here and there— but this time, those rough edges aren’t the norm, and in those slight pieces, there’s a frailty to it, as though a burden isn’t there. And her bangs having an asymmetry highlight something else. Maybe that insanity and chaos, ironically, is the binding force of Gehenna. Not the constant work by the Prefects to keep Gehenna in one piece at the end of the day, not the clubs that are known far and wide as terrorist organizations, but the shared ideal of freedom. To create is harder than to destroy, but the destruction isn’t the point; instead, it’s the ideal of causing a fire and, in the ashes, birthing something greater. Gehenna is known for being a volcanic region, and while it is true that an eruption is one of the more extreme natural disasters in how it buries things and turns other things into memories, it is also well-known to be the most fertile soil. In that regard, that would perhaps make Gehenna’s culture an incredibly pure and raw form of passion and expression, the fire to make a dream come true. And in Hina’s case, the fire to tell her true feelings.