Kyoka Jiro

Kyoka Jiro, also known as Hearing Hero: Earphone Jack (ヒアヒーローイヤホン＝ジャック), is a student in Class 1-A at U.A. High School, training to become a Pro Hero.

Appearance
Kyoka is a petite, fair-skinned girl with a slender build. She has triangular onyx eyes with notably long lower eyelashes and small eyebrows. Her dark-purple hair is chin length, with an asymmetrical fringe that has two reflections shaped like heartbeat monitor waves on either side. Her most prominent features are the flexible, plug-like earphone jacks hanging from each of her earlobes; they act like extra limbs that she is able to control at will, and change their length if so desired. Following the Paranormal Liberation War, she gains a small scar on her right earphone jack. During the Final War, her left ear and earphone jack are blown off by All For One.

Unlike the other students, Kyoka sometimes wears a waistcoat over her school uniform, in place of the usual U.A. blazer.

Her hero costume consists of a black leather jacket, long salmon-colored shirt with several rips at the collar and hem, black pants, and boots with stereos built into their shafts. She also has two small, triangular red paint marks just below her eyes, a plain black choker, and white fingerless gloves.

Later on, her costume gains a set of headphones with two bracelets that double up as her amplifiers and she changes her face paint to two larger chevron-shaped marks.

Personality
Kyoka has a pragmatic, unenthusiastic, blunt, and teasing personality that is mostly shown to those she finds irritating, like her fellow classmate Denki Kaminari, whose cluelessness makes him an easy target for her snarky comments. Kyoka is not always like this though, as she does enjoy socializing with others, in which case she is usually nice and friendly, most notably with Momo Yaoyorozu.

Kyoka often gesticulates through her elongated earlobes in place of her hands. She can also be quite aggressive, evidenced when she uses the Earphone Jacks her Quirk provides, to physically punish people when provoked or to keep them in line, most notably Denki and Minoru Mineta. During hero activities, however, Kyoka prefers smarter approaches, usually by coming up with a plan herself. She is surprisingly organized and makes sure to convey her ideas in a way that's easy to understand.

Despite the fact that she comes off as cold and indifferent, Kyoka also has a much more sensitive side, being very defensive towards her friends, empathetic with others' feelings, and getting flustered when her talents and capabilities are brought up. While Kyoka is hard to unnerve or surprise, she is afraid of horror-based activities, and has an aversion to nudity. She is a bit self-conscious about her looks as well, becoming noticeably upset when she was not seen as attractive by Minoru.

Like her parents, Kyoka has a major interest in rock music and owns several instruments which she is able to play to some extent. However, she seemed to be somewhat embarrassed about her interests at first, because she perceived them as completely unrelated to heroism, but thanks to a great presentation during the U.A. School Festival, she was able to outgrow that mindset.

Abilities
Overall Abilities: While she doesn't commonly employ close-quarters combat efficiency, Kyoka makes effective use of the handling she has on her Quirk, Earphone Jack. She utilizes the prehensile nature of her Earphone Jack Quirk in whip-like fashion, and use the sound generating effects of her Quirk to shock targets with vibrations, effectively stunning and sometimes defeating them. By the time of the Provisional Hero License Exam, Kyoka improved the efficacy of her Quirk, allowing her to plug her earphone jacks into the ground, and generate sound waves strong enough to make the ground quake, cause fissures, and disrupt large enemy formations. Her abilities eventually garnered the attention of Gang Orca, giving Kyoka the opportunity to intern under the No. 12 (formerly No. 10) Pro Hero, and improve on her search techniques. On Nabu Island, Kyoka, alongside Mashirao Ojiro, acted as the fourth line of defense against Nine, and effectively ambushed him before he subdued the two with his Hydra Quirk. Soon after, Mashirao and Kyoka aided Mezo Shoji against the powerful foe, forcing Nine into using the full power of his Air Wall Quirk to defeat the trio of students. Keen Intellect: Despite her unenthusiastic demeanor, Kyoka is quite intelligent, scoring 7th place in the midterms, displaying her skill in academics. She is also quite strategic, as she took advantage of the volatile nature of Denki's Quirk to allow the Stun Gun Hero to electrocute multiple villains during the U.S.J. Incident.

Indomitable Will: In a rare sense of moment, Kyoka has remarkable willpower. Though not as strong as All For One, Tomura, or Izuku, she managed to shrug off her fear after she feels the overwhelming power of All For One during the final battle. Her spirit was strong enough to stir up resistance from the former users of the Quirks All For One has stolen within his vestige world.

Musical Talent: Kyoka is able to play the bass, which is her preferred instrument alongside the guitar. She can play other instruments as well, like drums, but only to a limited extent. Her singing voice is described as "husky, but heavenly".

Quirk
Earphone Jack (イヤホンジャック): Kyoka's Quirk is that she has a pair of headphone jacks hanging from her earlobes. When the jacks are plugged into something, Kyoka can channel the sound of her heartbeat through them in the form of a violent vibration attack. She can stretch her earlobes several meters. This Quirk also allows her to hear minuscule sounds and vibrations from her surroundings.

As part of her training, Kyoka honed her headphone jacks by repeatedly piercing them into a stone cliff, all to increase the amount of audio she can hear with her Quirk.

Ultimate Moves

 * Counter-Balance (カウンターバランス): Plugging her jacks on the legs of her hero costume, Kyoka sends out a powerful soundwave from the amplifiers on her legs that cancels other sound-based attacks.
 * Heartbeat Distortion.gif Heartbeat Distortion (ハートビートファズ): Plugging her jacks on the special sound amplifiers on her forearms, Kyoka slams the amplifiers onto the floor and channels a powerful soundwave, shattering the ground due to the vibrations.
 * Heartbeat Surround (ハートビートサラウンド): Plugging her jacks on the special sound amplifiers on her forearms, Kyoka uses her elongated earlobes to remove the amplifiers from her wrists and direct them towards her target at close range, releasing a powerful, short-range soundwave to incapacitate them.
 * Legato (レガート): Kyoka performs her Heartbeat Surround move on a larger scale, with more power, and with more sound generated.
 * Heartbeat Wall: Similar to Heartbeat Surround, Kyoka once again plugs her jacks on her forearm amplifiers and uses her earlobes to remove them and aim them towards a target, but instead channels her heartbeat to form a sound wall that blocks and impedes her enemies' movement.

Equipment
Amplifier Jack (ジャック): Devices that Kyoka can plug her jacks into, amplifying even further the sound and vibration of her heartbeat. They are worn on both of her forearms.

Stereo Boots: A pair of boots that Kyoka can plug her earphone jacks into. They amplify her heartbeat and can direct the vibrations in a certain direction.

Headphones: A device that presumably compliments her jacks' ability to pick up sound vibrations.

Chapter Appearances

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Anime Appearances

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Trivia



 * In the preliminary stages of the manga, Kyoka was virtually unchanged from her original design, albeit her hair lacked its signature streaks.
 * Kyoka's surname contains the kanji for "ear" (耳) and "son, male" (郎), and her first name contains "sound, reverberation" (響), and "incense" (香).
 * Kyoka's first name contains syllables coming from her parents' names. "Kyō" (響) from her father, Kyotoku, and "香" (Ka) from her mother, Mika.
 * According to Kyoka's Volume 3 profile:
 * Her favorite thing is rock.
 * Kyoka may have been the first My Hero Academia character Kohei Horikoshi came up with. He was inspired to make a character that could plug their ears into objects while listening to music on his earphones during a trip back home.
 * Kyoka's rankings in the Popularity Polls are as follows:
 * Kyoka ranked 16th in the First Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 7th in the Second Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 22nd in the Third Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 21st in the Fourth Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 12th in the Fifth Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 15th in the Sixth Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka ranked 20th in the Seventh Popularity Poll.
 * Kyoka's known U.A. data is as follows:
 * Student No. 12 in Class 1-A
 * Ranked 17th in the Quirk Apprehension Test
 * Ranked 7th in Class 1-A's mid-term grades.
 * Ranked in the Top 42 of the U.A. Sports Festival First-Year Stage.
 * Kyoka's hairstreaks are drawn similarly to the waves of an EKG, a possible reference to how she uses her earphone jacks to amplify her heartbeat.
 * Kyoka is so far the only student in Class 1-A whose hero name is the exact same as her Quirk (Earphone Jack).
 * Kyoka and Denki share the same costume designer.
 * Kyoka's Japanese voice actor, Kei Shindō, also voices Kinoko Komori, Fuyumi Todoroki and Shoto Todoroki as a child.

Quotes

 * (To Koji about using his Quirk to combat Present Mic) "If you do this, we just might win. But there's no time to hesitate, so do it now! You wanna be a hero, don't you?! Then let's pass this test."

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