Jean Otus

C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Jean Otus
CANON: ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka (manga and anime)
POINT IN CANON: all canon, this app is nothing but SPOILERS from the very first line.
AGE: 30
APPEARANCE: This dork

He's on the skinny side, though not in a Clamp way. He has long limbs and sharp features, except for his very round and somewhat droopy Bette Davis eyes, which are watery blue and always staring at things. His body language and facial expression tend to be subtle and understated. His bearing are usually relaxed and he will sit down on available flat surfaces and lean on things. Canon doesn't give him an official height, so I'm going for something like 5'10'', considering how tall he is in comparison to his castmates. He smells of nicotine, bread and sweet things. His voice is soft, uniform and smooth. Most of the time, Jean sounds a little like he doesn't quite bother or have the energy to speak louder. Although he can raise his voice, he never actually shouts. Not even when he's wasted, surprised or angry. 

- Clothes: most frequently seen wearing his ACCA uniform: a black overcoat and black suit with red tie and red and white accents, though he tends to favor pastel colors and comfortable loose sweaters when he is chilling. He wears glasses to read. 

MARK: Strength - a faded and pale scar made by lion's teeth, on the nape of his neck.  It's as if some lioness had tried to carry him like a cub, but humans don't work that way. :(

CANON HISTORY:

Jean is ACCA 13's protagonist. He's the son of commoner Karl Otus and Princess Schnee, the 2nd Princess of the Dowa Kingdom, who was told by her father, the king, to fake her death and live in hiding among the common people, since she was just too wild and free-thinking to live as a royal.

Unaware of his mother’s background, Jean lost both his parents in an accident when he was a teenager. In spite of the trauma, he calmly raised his little sister Lotta. As an adult, he joined ACCA – a large organization that includes police, fire fighting, hospitals, border control, railroad inspections, national security etc, etc - and generally provides law and order for the people of Dowa and the kingdom's 13 states. Jean is the second-in-command of ACCA’s Inspection Department - a small department charged with the duty to travel and conduct ad hoc audits of all 13 ACCA branches around the kingdom. If something goes amiss, the Inspection Department is bound to notice it first. But after one hundred years of peace and quiet in the Dowa Kingdom, everything runs so smoothly that the Inspection Department seems superfluous. Isn’t it about time for a budget cut?

However, Jean’s small department gets a second wind when rumors of an imminent coup d’état start spreading all over Dowa. The problem lies in the royal succession. Dowa’s wise king is getting old and fragile, and the king’s heir - his grandson and Jean's cousin- is a complete fool. Among his unpopular ideas, he intends to disband ACCA and keep all the kingdom’s power under the crown's authority, which would not only break the delicate balance that has kept the thirteen states at peace, but also remove an organization that is deeply rooted in the daily lives of citizens. Shouldn’t ACCA prevent this from happening with a coup d’état? Or should they obey the legitimate crown prince like the law keepers they are?

As he travels and conducts his inspections in each of Dowa’s states, Jean finds himself in the center of this political intrigue, not quite understanding his role in it. He’s watched by spies, while antagonized, flattered and feared by the local authorities. Both he and his little sister are targeted by assassins. Eventually, Jean finds out that he is also a prince - actually older than the current crown prince and potentially next in line to the throne - if only he would step forward and reveal his lineage. The conspirators wish Jean to front the coup with the support of ACCA, but some of them also wish him to become a puppet king for one of the most powerful states. At the same time, he is pressured by those who are against the coup to deliver information on the conspiracy. The outcome for all those conflicting interests hinge on which side Jean will choose.

In the end, by going with the flow and almost intuitively playing and being played by both conspirators and those who wish to protect the crown, Jean facilitates a middle ground solution: the coup is defused just in time, but the crown prince gets a reality call by being shown that ACCA will overthrown him if he challenges its existence. Another royal successor is on the sidelines to replace him if that becomes necessary. It turns out that by not claiming the crown for himself, but still acting to preserve ACCA and the kingdom's peace, Jean has taken the path his grandfather had hoped and expected he would take. 

Without revealing his royal blood to the people of Dowa, Jean goes back to his ordinary life at the Inspection Department. 

CANON PERSONALITY:

Jean is perceptive about his surroundings, but very absent-minded and disinterested when it comes to himself. His self-effacing, egoless nature makes it possible for him to chill and go with the flow in spite of all the enormous power struggle surrounding him. He is very laid back and doesn’t seem to care about much, except for very specific people and things: his little sister Lotta, his one and only friend Nino, ACCA and - in a more detached way - what’s best for the people of Dowa.

Jean relies heavily on his more pragmatic and energetic little sister for such things as eating properly, getting dressed to work, packing for business trips and even running the family business as a manager of a luxury apartment building. The Otus siblings frequently function as a unity and rarely withhold secrets from each other for long. Jean placidly allows Lotta to boss him around, inviting coworkers for dinner and to stay over because she says so. He is quick to anticipate her needs, thoughts and feelings, and never forgets to buy her souvenirs from his many business trips, no matter how tired or busy he is. In Lotta's words, Jean may be forgetful, but he never forgets anything important. 

His friend Nino says Jean would be helpless without him, and he's probably right. They have been thick as thieves since high school and he's the one Jean turns to when he's in trouble. Need to prevent a setup by a dissatisfied ACCA employee? Need a companion to get embarrassingly drunk over an unrequited crush? Somebody to keep your little sis company while you're away? Call Nino. Later, it's revealed that Nino saved Jean's life on more than one occasion. In fact, Jean considers their friendship much more important than his own origins and the circumstances surrounding them. When Nino tells him about his deceased mother’s identity as a princess in hiding, he’s upset as he is rarely portrayed in canon, not because he could be the crown prince and was raised as a commoner, not because he has become the center of a political conspiracy that is threatening his life, not even because his only friend is revealed to be a royal agent placed in his life to spy on him. Jean is upset because Nino comforted and helped him when his parents died, while Jean never knew that Nino’s father had died in that very same accident.

Very, very rarely, Jean will shed his laid-back manners and speak with unflappable authority, reminding those who know that he is, indeed, a prince. In canon, that happens when Nino almost dies to save his life and implies that doing so was his duty. Jean very firmly tells Nino that he doesn’t exist to serve the Dowa family. It's also universally assumed that he would have been a much better candidate to the throne than his cousin. 

In his own quiet way, Jean cares deeply about ACCA, which he sees as a source of peace and order among the 13 states. He enjoys people watching and is very perceptive about their moods and needs, fully understanding and appreciating his country's diversity and each state's unique character and values. However, as much as he has no intention of leaving ACCA, Jean dislikes working for the Inspection Department. Traveling around the country is exhausting and it’s an important part of his job to suspect his coworkers at all times. People at work call him nicknames and tell him that he’s too apathetic and that they can’t relate to him. He’s actually much kinder than his blasé ways may suggest, and once in a blue moon someone notices that. That said, he doesn’t seem to care much about their judgment or acceptance. He’s serenely resigned to not being very well-liked and genuinely surprised when people take an interest in him. His lack of curiosity about himself is probably what allowed him to go through thirty years without realizing he was a member of the royal family.

He has filed many requests to transfer out of the Inspection Department... without any success. Unfortunately for Jean, he’s very good at what he does. Clever without being brilliant, he is quick to pick up discrepancies. Always the nonchalant, unruffled smoker - from royal receptions to hostage situations - he rarely takes action until it’s strictly necessary. When he does, he often thinks outside the box and tends to aim for consensual and balanced solutions.

- Quirks: He’s a chain smoker and loves bread, potato gratin, pastries and strawberries. He’s got no resistance to alcohol and tends to become a sullen and talkative drunk. He's all about enjoying the simple pleasures, such as leaving work earlier, eating tasty food, watching sunsets from rooftops and chatting with his friend at nice cafes.

On a side note,  the Kingdom of Dowa is a continental sized country, with multiple time zones, climates, ecosystems and ethnicities. Each district reminds us a little of a country or mix of cultures in our world, though they all keep a Japanese feel.  Their language is Japanese written in the Latin alphabet. Jean's district, Badon, is somewhat inspired in New York.

POINT OF DEPARTURE: n/a 

VETERAN?: No

ABILITIES: Perfectly ordinary homo sapiens. He can usually tell when he’s being watched (and he doesn't like it). Although smoking like a chimney is supposed to dull one's senses, Jean's seem to be very sharp, especially his senses of taste and smell. He's also said to possess hearing "as good as a bird's". 

INVENTORY: His cute lighter and cigarette case (cigarettes included).

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