“I ... I know what I have to do now.…”

Overview

He is a young man of the 104th Trainees and graduated with 6th place.

His has spiky, blonde hair (gray hair) shaved into an undercut style, with the shaved portion being black.

He has long, narrow and sharp eyes, and it is said that he has the "vicious look" in the original story.

He also has a long face, Eren called it a "horse face".

He is quite honest to himself and his personality is so overwhelming that he can easily create friction with others.

From the early days when he joins the training corps, he openly admitted his desire to join the Military Police Regiment which is a privileged class working in a secure inner territory, and thus he showed the calculating actions aiming to achieve higher rank in the daily training.

Jean is realistic on the contrary of hastiness. He wants to go to the inner walls not just for fun, but because he has considered that humanity launched a full-scale attack to the Titans and suffered a crushing defeat, also that they need sacrifice 30 people in average to kill one Titan, thus he draws a conclusion that “humanity cannot win over the Titans”, as a result, he tries to go to the inner walls.

Personality and Career

Due to his conservative attitude, he doesn’t get along with Eren, they would fight every time when they meet each other. The fact that Jean had a crush on Mikasa also accelerate the friction between Eren and him. Especially, Jean fell in love with Mikasa at the first moment and praised “what a beautiful black hair”, and then he touched Mikasa’s hair without any resistance, and furthermore he saw Eren advised Mikasa to cut off the hair because (it is dangerous that the long hair may be caught in the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment), in the back of Connie who passed by him, he wiped his hand which has been shaken with Eren just now. The scene was telling his feeling truthfully.

But from the bottom of his heart, he shows his attitude to believe in Eren as a friend. Jean calls Eren as a "suicidal maniac" since Eren is endlessly trying to confront the Titans no matter how dangerous it is.

Jean is really familiar with the operations of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. He is also the best one to get optimal performance of the equipment among his class.

But it was because that is the scoring point to go to the inner wall, and he did not pay attention to the martial arts which was not a scoring point, but when he was defeated by Eren, he started to work seriously to frustrate Eren.

As a result, he achieved a good ranking of 6th when he graduated (Eren ranks 5th by the way).

He has the ability to assess the current situation due to the realism. Though he claimed to go to a safe inland and stay away from the threat of the Titans, he also understands the reality that he must fight because he cannot escape from the fear of the Titans. “I know that I have to fight. But ... I can’t be a fool like you. As you can see from his own recalls, “Not everyone has the power as you did … we are not so strong...”, Jean does not like the way that Eren charges to the Titans even Eren knows the fear of the Titans, but Jean feels envy of Eren's strength in his heart and that is his real feeling.

For this reason, Marco described him as "just because he is not strong, thus he understands the weak people’s feelings precisely, no matter how difficult the instructions, he can receive them precisely". Actually, in the operation to retake the supply house, when Mikasa headed to the supply house alone after her awkward speech, he inspired the fellow trainees who have lost the fighting spirit not to let Mikasa fight alone, and Jean was the first one to follow her.

Jean did not take it serious and thought that is just a casual talk when Marco said that, but he recognized his mission to fight being triggered by Marco's death, and he kept Marco's words in his heart, then he changed his application of joining the Military Police Regiment, and joined the Survey Corps.

Since then, he has achieved remarkable growth, he recognizes what he should do and shows the encourage to risk his life with fears, and encourages Eren in his way while making Eren recognize the cruel reality. Even that is Mikasa who he had crush on, if he disagrees, he would speak directly to Mikasa.

Under any circumstances, he can always assess the situation, find the best way, and he can take the initiative operations while dipping up the fear and the feelings to fight of the companions, so he has the excellent qualities to be a leader as Marco said, and his judgment and leadership are the best among the new Levi’s squad. But he does not have the imagination to find a solution to break through the specific situations like Armin.

In the battle with the Colossal Titan, he took over the commanding role from Armin who was unable to give accurate command due to panic of wrong instructions, and he commanded the Eren and other fellow trainees to fight with t Colossal Titan until Armin found a way to defeat the Colossal Titan, eventually they defeated the Colossal Titan.

Jean is the person who has the sensibility close to that of the most ordinary people among the main characters, and it is easy to get sympathy from the readers because of the personality to make sarcastic remarks but not hiding anything.

The author of the original marks Jean as his favorite character, and it is easy to make an enemy because he is blatantly honest, but it is said that he says that he is a reliable person since he does not hide anything no matter good or bad and he speaks his mind without lies. At the same time, the anime staff likes him, so he appears more times than what he was written in the original, and he has been another hero as the matter of the fact.

Remarks

• In the DVD sold based on the special version of the original 13 volumes limited edition, he is illustrated as the hero, he is also quite amazing in the original version as well as in the Opening.
• In the "Attack on Titan: Kansai Dialect" sold as a special version for the original 17 volumes limited edition, not sure why that Jean is called another name.

Related Illustrations