There are a lot of strange characters in the world of My Hero Academia, from beastial villains to wooden heroes. Despite this, one of the most bizarre recurring characters is a perfectly normal looking man, who simply has a thing for Jeans.
My Hero Academia is set in a world full of people with superpowers known as ‘quirks’. While most people live perfectly normal lives despite this, some decide to use their quirks for the public good, and become heroes. All Might was well known as the number 1 hero before his retirement, but a few places down on the hero rankings sits the fiber hero, Best Jeanist. Jeanist shows up fairly often in the story, but there’s still a bit of mystique around him, as he doesn’t get much time for character development.
Personality
Jeanist is a rather tall man, whose outfit is made up entirely of denim jeans. This Includes a jean-like neck piece that covers most of his face. Along with his bangs, his look makes him appear rather stern and sinister, as his eyes are often narrowed and his face hidden. While he is quite reserved, this perception is actually quite far from the truth. Jeanist is one of the heroes who believe in the classical form of heroism, seeing it as a service he’s providing to society. Due to this, he takes his role as a hero very seriously, always approaching it with a quiet determination.
He also is quite flamboyant and style obsessed, as one might guess from his jean-based hero persona and sleek hair. He is shown to actively dislike people who are too rude and abrasive, such as the troublesome Katsuki Bakugo, who he later takes on as an intern at his agency. Jeanist’s charisma is also of note, as it’s one of the things keeping him near the top of the hero rankings. It is stated that if the rankings were based only on popularity, Jeanist would actually be the number 1 hero, showing how much the general public adores him.
His Quirk
It’s comforting to know that the denim-only look is not just Jeanist’s fashion sense. Like many heroes (such as Midnight and Thirteen), Jeanist’s hero costume is based entirely around maximizing the effectiveness of his quirk; ‘fiber master’.
Fiber master is a quirk that allows Jeanist to manipulate cloth at will. The quirk has varying effectiveness on different types of cloth, with denim being by far the easiest to control, and sweats being the hardest. This explains why he is always seen dressed in denim. He might also be able to control other types of fiber, such as carbon fibers or possibly even muscle fibers.
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Due to its effectiveness on cloth, this quirk is quite powerful in a society where everyone is always wearing clothes. Even All For One couldn't resist being restrained by the fibers of his own suit when Jeanist willed it. The only reason he was able to escape Jeanist is via a large enough force to rip his clothes. With how effective this quirk can be, it’s no wonder that Jeanist climbed his way to the higher ranks of hero society.
History
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Despite being mentioned in the 3rd chapter of MHA’s manga, Jeanist didn’t appear in person in the series until chapter 48, during the ‘hero killer’ arc, where some of the students attend work studies at pro hero offices. He’s revealed as the hero that Bakugo chose to work with, although it’s implied that this is only because of Jeanist’s status as the number 4 hero. Following All Might’s retirement, he would later be promoted to the number 3 hero.
During the ‘hideout raid’ arc, he is the first to encounter All For One, and is gravely injured soon afterwards, removing him from the public spotlight for a long time, and permanently losing him some of his internal organs. He is even absent for his own promotion to number 3 hero.
He’s next seen during the events of the ‘meta liberation war’ arc, aka ‘my villain academia’. As part of Hawks’ undercover work, he is shown supposedly killing Jeanist, and presenting his body to the villain Dabi. As this was the last arc adapted by the anime so far, it is currently unclear to anime watchers whether Jeanist is truly dead or not.
Relationships
Like most of Japan’s top heroes, Jeanist actually attended UA, just like the students of class 1-A. He didn’t attend at the same time as All Might or Endeavor, but was around while Edgeshot was in the school, leading them to develop a friendship that has persisted into their lives as heroes.
He keeps cordial relationships with the rest of the heroes, but his closest connection is actually with the aforementioned Bakugo. During their time working together, Jeanist attempted to get Bakugo to mellow out, even combing Bakugo’s spiky hair to more match his own. At first, it seemed like he was simply trying to push his ideals unto Bakugo, but Jeanist turns out to be a better teacher than that. He attempts to show Bakugo the other important parts to hero life besides combat, such as public relations.
Bakugo surprisingly ends up looking up to Jeanist, despite their clashing personalities. On Jeanist’s request, he revises his rejected hero names into one he’s more proud of, but refuses to reveal the new name to his classmates, supposedly wanting Jeanist to be the first one to hear his true name. This implies that Bakugo respects Jeanist possibly as much as he does All Might, which is shocking, considering his long-term love of All Might.