General "Did you Know?"s

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Have you ever wondered why in martial arts themed movies, games, etc some characters get white hair after achieving certain degree of power?

That's becuase white hair in martial arts = power from death. Or power with a price.

Take for example:

1.Rugal Bernstein from 'The King of Fighters' series:

Rugal Bernstein:


Omega Rugal:


Using the Orochi power basically gave him a death sentence in exchange for a brief opportunity to wield power far beyond his imagination.

2. Akuma from the 'Street Fighter' series, whose hair becomes white when he is on his "Shin Akuma" state (aka when he's fighting using the 100% of his power). The power he uses is called the "Satsui no Hado", which is a form of ki that is rooted in the darker aspects of the natural human instinct, and the untrained mind can be driven into insanity if they are not mentally ready for it. In other words, when Akuma is fighting at his 100%, he is risking his own mental sanity at the cost of power.

A third example I can think of it's from the anime/manga series "Fist Of The North Star":

FOTNS SPOILERS

The characer Rei was given a death sentence with the destruction of his ability to fight. Kenshiro was able to use a technique to let Rei fight again...but at the cost of his near-immediate death. Basically he'd get one last fight. This process made Rei's hair go from black to stark white.

In other words: The white hair is a sign of the changes in the user's chi. It is symbolic both of his "death" as a standard human being and the "death" he represents as a user of a lethal martial art. You know, "I have become death itself" and all that.