Minoru Mineta

Minoru Mineta "Since when were you all under the impression I wasn't in complete control?" Gender: Male Type: Pointless Perverted Superhero Age: 15 (first appearance) 16 (U.A. School Festival Arc onwards) Species: Human Portrayed by: Ryō Hirohashi (Japanese) Brina Palencia (English) Status: Alive Media of origin: My Hero Academia

"A hero? Really?! Try learning how to be a good person first!"

— Kota Izumi to Minoru Mineta

Minoru Mineta (in Japanese: 峯田稔, Mineta Minoru) also known by his hero name Fresh-Picked Hero: Grape Juice (もぎたてヒーローぶどうジュース, Mogitate Hīrō Gurēpu Jūsu), is a supporting protagonist in the anime/manga series My Hero Academia. He is a student in Class 1-A at U.A. High School. He is known for his Quirk called "Pop Off", which Minoru to make extremely sticky yet removable spheres from his head.

Why UA Should Expel This Pervert

1. Let's get the elephant out of the room. He is a complete pervert (and no, not the good kind or the well-executed kind like Meliodas, Sanji, Master Roshi, Hebert the Pervert, Reita Toritsuka, or Jiraiya), this has been carried to the point where the girls (and even some of the boys) will attack him the first chance they get. Even Mr. Aizawa is aware of Mineta's lust and does not allow him to cross certain lines of human decency.
   • At least said characters listed above have personalities outside of being a pervert. Which Mineta does not have, making him out to be an absolute creep.
2. Hypocrisy: He criticizes others for having perverted behavior (even if they turn out to be nothing more than misunderstandings), yet he had no qualms about making a sexual comment to a 6-year-old girl.
3. Setting his Pop Off quirk aside, the "Fresh-Picked" in his hero name is too far from fresh with his actively lewd personality (talk about "overripe").
4. He tries way too hard to be cool or popular. However, he ends up failing, thus being looked down on by many girls and boys all around him.
5. He, alongside Denki Kaminari, tricked Izuku Midoriya into persuading Mr. Aizawa to give them permission to use the school pool just to see the girl's bikinis. However, they got disappointed when the girls were wearing school-mandated swimsuits (although Mineta was somewhat satisfied and aroused at the girls wearing the non-sexual school appropriate swimsuits instead, which led to Kaminari telling him to have some standards).
6. He is the reason why Momo Yaoyorozu (who wears an exposed leotard as her hero costume) was often victimized of his perverting plans and tendencies, including one that had her (along with the rest of his female classmates) wear cheerleader outfits in the UA Sports Festival. Shortly beforehand, he managed to cling on her back at the near end of the obstacle race after Yaoyorozu unzipped her PE uniform top to expose more skin for her Creation Quirk.
   • He was partly responsible for Yaoyorozu losing her confidence in the UA Sports Festival, as mentioned earlier he clung on her back and made her come in last place in the obstacle race, not to mention it was sexual harassment, and made her self-esteem sunk even lower by tricking her and the rest of the girls of Class 1-A to wear the skimpy cheerleader outfits.
7. While Denki does have an interest in girls, he still respects their privacy. Mineta, however, crossed the boundary line when he reveals his plan to climb a wall and spy on the girls' side of the hot springs (even Kaminari tells him that he's taking it too far).
   • Another instance was when he used a peephole to spy on the girls' locker room, which led to have his eye poked by Jiro's earphone jack.
8. He often denies the truth about himself. For example, he chose Mt. Lady for an internship, which caused Tsuyu to accuse Mineta of doing it just so he could peep on Mt. Lady while she was naked, only for him to immediately deny it.
9. Most of his screen-time is just him being a whiny prick. In fact, it can sometimes annoy people who don't want to hear Mineta act like a whiny, spoiled brat.
10. Minoru is also shown to be jealous (whether it's a misunderstanding or not from that person), such as when he and Kaminari antagonize Deku just because the latter got to fight against Shiketsu High's Camie Utsushimi (who was actually Himiko Toga in a midst of her transformation quirk). In fact, Deku said that Mineta (alongside Kaminari) was misinterpreting everything and what actually happened.
11. He can be a full-on terrible jackass in some specific moments, like when Katsuki and Shoto failed the Provisional Hero License Exam and Minoru found out about it. What did he do? He makes fun of them and calls them "losers" while they are truly powerful and more strategic than him.
    • Thankfully, he was silenced by Iida twice to show some sympathy to Shoto and Katsuki.
12. Minoru can also be seen as being picky. For instance, Iida asks ideas from Class 1-A about U.A. High School's festival. Kaminari said that they should do a maid cafe. This made Minoru object and call it lame (he even said that he wanted a topless bar instead), thus allowing Yaoyorozu to have Mineta's suggestion eliminated.
    • Thankfully, Tsuyu punished him for bringing a perverting idea to a school festival.
13. He's kind of a bad hero. His Quirk is too situational and he'd rather run away from a fight instead of actually trying to find a way to beat a villain.
14. His hero costume looks like a rip-off of superhero characters with awful toilet humor such as Fanboy and Chum Chum, even though he is not really the person to make any of that.
15. After going through some very emotional events, some of Class 1-A decides to have a lighthearted contest to determine who has the best dorm room at UA. Mineta, naturally, beckons the girls to visits his room... which they skip without a word. Clearly, Mineta must have a REALLY naughty room. Also, for him to try taking advantage of his female classmates and annoy the males while some of them are dealing with the recent incidents very badly (Bakugo and Tsuyu have especially suffered upsetting events and have holed up in their rooms for the night) is extremely low, considering this contest is to help get their minds off the heavy stuff.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Sometimes, Minoru can actually be hilarious at times (though this may depend on your own view).
   • He even broke the fourth wall for mentioning how small his character design is for the guitar while selecting a guitarist for the Class 1-A's rock band during the School Festival Arc.
2. Surprisingly enough, he's actually intelligent to the point that he can score very high on tests and come up with creative strategies in order to achieve victory.
   • He even managed to single-handedly pass the practical exam against the R-Rated Hero Midnight while his exam partner Hanta Sero was affected by her Somnambulist quirk and soon failed.
3. The reason why Minoru is made to be a loathsome pervert is that Kohei Horikoshi, the series' author, has trouble balancing his likability with his perversion.
4. He still does get along fine with some characters such as Izuku (because Minoru admires Deku for his acts of heroism) and Tsuyu (although she does punish Minoru for his perverted behavior several times, both worked together to defeat several villains in the U.S.J. Arc).
   • In the aftermath of the Forest Training Camp attack incident orchestrated by the League of Villains, he gave Deku a melon, which is nice.
5. His voice actresses, Ryō Hirohashi and Brina Palencia, do good jobs voicing him.
6. He did get some character development in My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.
7. He's grown as a character, as he went from being a whiny crybaby to a confident hero.
8. Similar to other characters in My Hero Academia, his design is cute.

Trivia

1. Minoru's surname contains the kanji for "summit" (峰 mine?) and "rice field" (田 ta?), and his first name contains "to bear fruit, great fertility, berry" (実 minoru?).
2. Minoru's preliminary design had him as slightly taller and wearing a more unique pair of shoes, resembling those that Izuku Midoriya usually wears. His costume also had additional details like a stem on the upper part of his mask, further referencing his grape theme.

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