Tenma Nakaoji

Tenma is built lean and stands tall, his skin tanned and his eyes a striking purple. Dark brown hair, plentiful and a little unruly, gathers into a long ponytail, and a heavy fringe covers his face on the right. A neat mustache and beard frame his mouth, and his chest carries enough hair to be worth mentioning, which is not incidental.

He works in a two-piece suit rather than armor. The jacket has epaulets and frills and hangs open down the front, and the badges pinned to his belt carry the letter P.

Flamboyance is the whole register. He overreacts on purpose, strikes poses that no situation requires, and treats the theater of heroics as inseparable from the work itself. None of that means he takes the job lightly. Presentation is simply part of what he thinks a hero owes the public, which is why he clocked immediately that Shota Aizawa would never survive a camera.

He reads talent accurately and says so out loud, praising trainees who thought fast in a hostage crisis and who understood that protecting the people at risk mattered more than catching the man responsible. His own words to Shota were that heroes exist to hand hope to people in trouble, and that a face full of visible stress drags down the very people waiting to be saved.

The bravado sits on top of something serious. When Garvey tore through Tasomiya Ward after beating other heroes, Tenma walked at him alone knowing he could not win, because the minutes he bought were minutes civilians could use to run.

During the school years of Nemuri Kayama, Oboro Shirakumo, and Shota Aizawa, His Purple Highness was already an established Pro. He picked Nemuri for a work-study placement at his office, and her recommendation brought the other two in behind her.

Their first outing went badly. The three failed to hold the Robber Villain, Tenma had to step in and shield Shota, and the money left with the criminal. Afterward he complimented Nemuri and Oboro for putting the hostages first and singled Shota out for criticism, though not for the reason Shota assumed: the problem was the gloom on his face, not the escape. Smile regardless of how things are going, was the instruction. Days later Oboro and Shota caught the same robber and made the arrest, earning praise for their teamwork and, in Shota's case, another note about practicing that smile. Physically, Tenma has strength his frame does not advertise, enough to boot a safe high into the air with one kick, and his Quirk, Chest Hair, has no observable effect beyond amplifying his manly qualities.

After a stint back at U.A. the trainees returned and split into patrol pairs, Tenma walking with Nemuri. They found Garvey wrecking the city and dismantling the hero team Buster Union. Tenma sent Midnight for backup and to clear civilians while he bought time, then caught up with the villain again where Shota and Oboro were moving nursery children out. He attacked, shouting at his students to get the kids to safety, and Garvey answered by unloading an attack stored inside one of his lumps, hurling Tenma into a building and leaving him unconscious and badly hurt. The building came down. Oboro was buried shielding a child and later died from a blow to the head. Shota, alone, beat Garvey anyway. Tenma went to the hospital, and his status has gone unconfirmed since.