Mei Hatsume

Mei Hatsume (発目明) is a student of U.A. High School's Department of Support from Class 1-H.

Appearance
Mei is a reasonably short girl with quite a mature build. She has salmon pink hair, which is generally shoulder-length, although it does vary, which is styled into thick dreadlocks and sideswept to her right. Her eyes are wide and sloped upwards with some notably long upper eyelashes, their irises yellow with a cross in the centre, making them look somewhat like scope lenses.

In her first appearance, she wears the regular U.A. gym uniform (a dark blue tracksuit decorated with the letters “U” and “A”), but she also adds some of her own gadgets onto it, including red and gold steampunk goggles, a utility belt to hold the various tools she carries around, oversized speed-assisting boots, and what could possibly be a jet pack strung over her shoulders.

She’s later seen wearing a plain black tank top with workshop coveralls tied casually around her waist, with the same goggles on her head.

Personality
Mei is a smart, off-setting, and assertive girl, often making those around her uncomfortable. She loves creating gadgets, which she refers to as her "super cute babies". Mei has a habit of "going straight to the point" and is very shameless and opportunistic when it comes to advertising her inventions. While talking to people, she has a habit of getting awkwardly close to them, which usually causes them to back away from her but she still moves up to them. She is also manipulative, as she tricked Tenya Iida into using her support equipment to promote her inventions.

Mei shows no fear when it comes to failing, seeing it as an opportunity to learn and do better next time, which is why she does not mind when her inventions fail. Mei can be seen as self-centered due to putting her love of inventions and gadgets above others, but this selfishness is not a negative as it is out of motivation to improve herself. She does seem to be a little bit absent-minded as she is easily distracted and can sometimes be completely unaware of her surroundings, as shown by her inability to sense one of her inventions catch on fire as she was speaking with Izuku Midoriya. Furthermore, she seems inept at reading body language and social cues, apparently being oblivious to Izuku's discomfort with her proximity to him on several occasions.

Abilities
Overall Abilities: Outside of her intellect, Mei mostly acts as a support rather than facing battles directly. However, she proves to be a capable combatant as seen in her match against Iida, where it lasted for ten minutes with Iida unable to do anything to her despite his speed advantage and only winning when she forfeited.

Expert Inventor: Mei is very smart and innovative, creating many different pieces of equipment on her own that can help her in many situations. She relies mostly on her inventions to traverse obstacles and tasks. Power Loader acknowledges Mei's talent in the field of inventing, calling her one of a kind.

Skilled Manipulator: Mei is good at manipulating people, shown when she tricked Tenya into modeling her inventions during the Sports Festival final round Tournament. However, Tenya was already very gullible anyway.

Business Savvy: Mei has a good mind for business. She took full advantage of the Sports Festival, as the stands were full of scouts from major Hero Support Equipment Companies. She teamed up with Izuku during the Cavalry Battle, knowing that people would pay attention to him, since he finished first in the previous competition. She also spent the entirety of her match against Tenya (a full 10 minutes) demonstrating and explaining her inventions to the crowd.

Quirk
Zoom (ズーム): Mei's Quirk allows her to make her vision zoom in on whatever is in her line of sight. If she really focuses, Mei can see things as far as five kilometers.

Equipment
Goggles: A pair of steampunk-looking goggles. It is unknown if they have any practical applications aside from those of regular goggles.

Hydraulic Bracers: A support item that detects an incoming enemy and extents a telescopic metal pole to push the wearer out of the way.

Capture Gun: A pistol that fires capture nets. It can be shot five times before one needs to reload it.

Electromagnetic Soles: A pair of boots that improve the wearers footwork.

Wire Arrow (ワイヤーアロウ): This device is a combination of a wire with an arrow-like grappling hook attached to the end, which can be used to reach distant surfaces.

Hover Soles (ホバーソール): Two big metallic boots that have turbines implanted inside them, which allows the wearer to hover above the ground.

Other Inventions
Auto Balancers: A support item that takes the form of leg braces an a backpack. The function of this device is to prevent the wearer from falling, unless they intend to.

Jet Pack: A creation of Mei's, this device is a metal backpack with two turbines on the bottom part of the backpack that will activate when the wearer presses the activation switch.

High Density Weights (超圧縮おもり): A creation of Mei's, this device inhibits and drains speed and stamina of a user. This allows the user to fight on the same level as a weaker, less experienced opponent.

Power Suit: A mechanical suit that senses muscle contraction and aids in movement. Mei's 49th invention.

Electric Booster: A speed booster that generates minimum heat. Mei's 36th invention.

My Adorable Baby: A robot suit with iron soles. Unintentionally explosive. Mei's 202nd invention.

Chapter Appearances

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Trivia

 * Mei's name comes "invention" (発明) and "eyes" (目), but the second and third kanji have switched positions.
 * Mei was originally going to be a male.
 * In the First Popularity Poll, Mei ranked 20th, which ties her with Toru Hagakure.
 * Mei's favorite food is chocolate.
 * Mei likes the steampunk style, as evidenced by her usual gadgetry.
 * Mei ranked in the Top 16 of the U.A. Sports Festival First-Year Stage.
 * Mei's Power Suit could be a reference to the prototype battle suit developed by Justin Hammer, shown near the beginning of the movie Iron Man 2. This suit accidentally twisted the torso section through 180 degrees, possibly killing the test pilot (although Hammer claims he was injured but recovered). Luckily for Izuku, Mei disabled her suit before it twisted too far.

Quotes

 * (To Power Loader) "Heh heh heh... Failure is the mother of invention, Power Loader-sensei. Thomas Edison once said that. Just cuz a creation doesn't work as intended doesn't mean the effort is wasted..."
 * (To Tenya Iida about using his arms instead of his legs) "If you want to cool your legs, all you have to do is just run with your arms!"

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