With her pink hair and distinctive wardrobe, Mei Hatsume was one of the most popular characters from My Hero Academia in years past. Even though she’s a support hero, Mei was memorable and had many fans.
My Hero Academia began as a manga, and then branched to an anime series and animated movies, and has become one of the most popular series of all time. With a new manga volume just released, a live-action movie is also on the way. Mei Hatsume is a student in Class 1-H of U.A. Academy, the top-ranked hero school in Japan. We love her, but there are a few things that are annoying about her too.
10 Love: Mei Doesn't Care If She Fails – She Keeps Trying
In "Creating Ultimate Moves," Mei told Power Loader, “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...” As smart and inventive as she is, her inventions sometimes fail, and she’s totally cool with that. It’s that lack of any fear of failure that lets her keep going, keep trying, and keep coming up with her useful inventions. In fact, failure is just a stepping stone to success.
9 Annoying: Her Quirk Has Little Value, And Her Stats Are Low
Mei had a Quirk that wasn’t so well-known. Her Quirk lets her focus her eyes to zoom in on objects in the distance up to 5 kilometers away. It’s pretty cool, and it actually ties in with her name, which combines the Japanese words for “invention” and “eyes”, but, sadly, that Quirk has no potential when it comes to offense. On top of that, while her intelligence and motivation scores are high, her other stats are fairly low, including speed and technique.
8 Love: Mei's Steampunk Style
Mei’s style changed a bit over the years, but author and illustrator Kōhei Horikoshi has always paid attention to what his characters wear. Mei Hatsume has a preference for steampunk style, at least in her accessories. Her first appearances in the manga were in the regular school uniform, but she quickly adds her trademark red and gold goggles and over-sized boots that are clearly steampunk. Even when she changed her costume to a casual black outfit, the goggles were still a part of her look.
7 Annoying: Mei Can Be Blunt And Self Serving
As smart as she is, with a fearless personality, it naturally leads Mei to be assertive. There’s a line, though, between assertive and off-putting. Mei doesn’t mind making the people around her uncomfortable with her often very blunt remarks and observations. She can also be pretty shameless when it comes to her own self-promotion and advertising her many admittedly cool inventions. She can push things to the point of being overly aggressive, and it turns the other characters off.
6 Love: Her Incredible Inventions
A genius when it comes to inventiveness, Mei is a kind of the female manga/anime version of Tony Stark, always coming up with a new high tech gadget that will help her or that she can use to benefit the other heroes.
She calls her robot suit “My Adorable Baby," and it’s her 202nd invention, although only a dozen or so ever appear in the story. Mei invented her steampunk goggles, the jet pack that she uses, high-density weights, hover soles for her shoes, and more.
5 Annoying: Mei's Arrogant And Selfish Ways
Mei is the kind of person you’d want to have around when there is action of any kind, or action is being planned. If you’re just chilling with your buds, she might not be the person to call. Mei is pretty much fixated on her inventions and gadgets, which makes her selfish and even self-centered.
Her inventions come before anyone and anything else, in her eyes. She’s also not afraid to tell people about her genius, especially when it comes to her gadgets, which can come across as arrogant.
4 Love: She's A Secret Badass
Mei’s smarts are clearly her strongest suit. She’s the one who supports the heroes, rather than facing her own battles directly in the world of My Hero Academia. But, there was that one time when she was matched against Iida. The match lasted ten whole minutes, and, even though Iida clearly had a speed advantage thanks to his Quirk, he only won because Mei forfeited. That happened during the U.A. School Festival arc, showing that Mei had more potential than most people realized.
3 Annoying: She's So Absent-Minded!
Mei is often the epitome of the absent-minded professor/genius when it comes to character traits. She is easily distracted from the work at hand at times.
At one point, while speaking to Izuku Midoriya, who she met at the U.A. Sports Festival, she completely lost track of what was going on around her to the point that her own inventions caught on fire, and she didn’t even know it. It may go along with being a high functioning inventor, but it can get annoying.
2 Love: Her Social Awkwardness Is Adorable
You could say that Mei is single-minded. She really only focuses on one thing: her inventions, as well as promoting those inventions. She clearly has not paid a lot of attention to mundane things like social skills. Despite the fact that she’s eager to join Izuku’s team and make gadgets for him to further her own interests, she seems completely oblivious to the fact that he freaks out just a little every time she gets too close and invades his space. A little social awkwardness makes the genius more human.
1 Annoying: She Can Get Into Petty Arguments
Power Loader recognizes Mei’s talent for inventions, something she pursues passionately. He lets her spend a lot of time in his workshop and comes to know her, just as he realizes how useful her inventions can be to his other students.
With Mei’s uber-confident attitude, however, clashes are inevitable, and, with Power Loader, Mei can let pettiness get in the way of what is really a useful friendship for both of them. Clearly, she can’t be expected to be the better person when it comes to differences of opinion.