Trying to Explain a Strange Anime Hairstyle

Rachel Moore (aka Ran Mouri) is one of the main characters in the hugely popular Case Closed (aka Detective Conan). Her hair is bizarre.

It’s bizarre because she’s a regular person and not some character from fantasy or another planet. Those wild coifs are excusable. But hers? It should conform to regular laws of hair. Yet…

This is why the character can be tricky for cosplayers.

Oh. Hrm. It’s like a hair cone.

Even official cosplay looks off. Here, we have model Rui Kumae dressed as the character at a press event for a Detective Conan app.

See how Kumae’s cosplay stacks up against the character? Let’s see how some other talented cosplayers bright the hairdo to life:

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1172466510507331584

明日26日のAJは蘭姉ちゃんで行きます☺️
寒かったら、移動中はこの上着着てるかもw

会場かぶる方よろしくお願いします(^^)
毛利小五郎！江戸川コナン！毛利蘭！
探偵事務所組で遊びに行きます✨#ajコスプレ #AJコス予定 pic.twitter.com/4Ghxklimba

— もころす🧸🎀 (@mokorosu) March 25, 2017

#名探偵コナン #毛利蘭
このウィッグ、お気に入り！ pic.twitter.com/otiCTVd2o5

— 小柔SeeU (@seeu_cosplay) March 8, 2019

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1183650670194253824

Fans do like to have fun with the character’s hair.

No wonder people often make fun of Mouri’s hair.

But the character’s hair wasn’t always like this. When the Detective Conan manga debuted in 1994, the character had a fairly normal ‘do. But then it evolved, as you can see in these images via Twitter userTakumi.

What caused the change? Maybe her hair became patterned after pop star Shizuka Kudo’s style? In Japan, Kudo was incredibly popular in the 1980s and the 1990s.

https://twitter.com/embed/status/724254841787150336

So, that isn’t a hair cone on the character’s head, but a popular hairstyle of the time. Takumi redrew the character in a more realistic fashion, showing how the ‘do actually works and that Ran Mouri isn’t a conehead.

https://twitter.com/embed/status/724113777977757696

Phew. Good to know! But wait. In the anime, her hair has a highlight, which confuses things, indeed making it look like there is a hair cone on her head.

You know what could be the answer to this puzzling hair?

This article was originally published on April 26, 2016. It has since been updated.