Today I want to talk about Airi and her hair. A student that, like mint, is refreshing in how honest she is and, like chocolate, has some richness behind it. Combined, you get a taste good enough to make thugs rethink their life.
Airi's normal outfit has straight brown hair that goes down to her midriff. At the same height as her eyebrows are little hairclips that look like mint ice cream. Most would think that's all there is to her hair, but they would miss the subtle whitening her hair takes, like it's in a very cold environment. This is reflected in her chibi, but in her memolobby and event images this doesn't exist. It's almost like a relic from another era, lost to time. Maybe it was never meant to exist, but I personally like how it's a little thing that adds a lot to Airi.
Airi's band outfit has her hair mostly the same, except tied in a hairbow behind her that rocks a minty green color which substitutes her ice cream hairclips. There's not much to say about it, other than how simple changes can have a lot of other subtle differences. For example, no hairclips means her hair vents are now more pronounced, the strands these are associated to going down to her neck. The hairbow, too, creates a miniature ponytail for her hair, though it blends in to the rest of her hair, like an instrument in an orchestra. Distinct, but a part of the song and not the song itself.
The Mint Murderer can't wear any accessories that would reveal her identity, so she instead wears a mix of a hockey mask and a screaming mask. A reflection of terror... The cool seeping into a person as the pain begins to fade and they enter a slumber most sweet, their face, frozen like ice cream... Airi is pretty scary.
Airi's main outfit does have some synergy with her hair, though it's a bit on the nose, since her white serafuku can be seen as a type of mint, with the blacks being different chocolates. The blue? I don't think it has any bearing on being mint or chocolate, instead being a moderator so that both flavors don't overpower. Wearing ONLY mint colors and chocolate colors would make her look silly.
Her jacket in her band outfit feels like there's a deeper meaning behind it, something about how she's trying to be something more? I can't quite put my finger on how to tie it all together cohesively, though.
The Chocolate Crusher has a bat that does look like it's a similar shade to chocolate, though it's either papier-mache or an actual brown bat. The mint color on her outfit is clever in how there's both striking bold hits, but also some mist-like patterns, as though the victim were either hit so hard that a mist got on the outfit, or there was not a lot of mint remaining. The boots and gloves being clean is haunting, too. As though, despite the brutal nature of attacks, there's some level of art to it.
Did you know that one of Airi's hobbies is tea parties? I sure didn't. That said, being a Trinity student naturally leads to her having clean hair, that shouldn't be a surprise. The scent, though? While I could easily say she smells like chocomint, that's both lazy and somewhat ridiculous. You'd expect that more in a soap than a conditioner. No, Airi's more nuanced than that. Cleverer. She'd balance out her brown hair with a mint scent, and would then use chocolate for the soap. You take a whiff of her hair, and you get a nice refreshing kick that energizes you! Then, if you get a scent from her body, it's a simple sweet, but full, chocolate. Both can happen too, giving you something greater than the sum of the parts: Airi!
Link to previous entries (assuming I don't forget):
https://rentry.org/hair_archive