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    Neito Monoma
    "Your class is too small-minded, think bigger." Said no one but you!
    Gender: Male
    Type: Obsessed Trickster Rival with a Big Ego
    Age: 16
    Species: Human
    Portrayed by: Kohei Amasaki (Japanese)
    Austin Tindle (English)
    Media of origin: My Hero Academia
    First appearance: My Hero Academia (Manga)


    "So you're just gonna ignore me? Talk about rude! I heard Class A is doing a concert or something for us, that's so cute!! But to put it bluntly Class B's stellar performance is gonna make you wish you hadn't even shown up!! You should make sure you come prepared, bring a hanky to wipe the tears from your eyes when you realize HOW SUPERIOR WE ARE!! HAAHAHAHAHAAHAE- (knocked out by a bat)"
    Neito going in a maniacal tirade and acting deranged after taunting at Deku and some members of Class 1-A, right before getting whacked on the head by a bat.


    Neito Monoma, also known as Phantom Thief, is a recurring character in the anime series My Hero Academia. He is the egotistical rival of Class 1-A, who constantly wants to prove that Class 1-B is superior to them and obsesses over any of Class 1-A's mistakes. He is voiced by Kohei Amasaki in the Japanese dub, and Austin Tindle in the American dub.

    (Intentional) Bad Qualities

    1. Firstly, in similar veins to Noah Kaiba, despite starting off as an intelligent teenager who possess knowledge beyond human intellect and being an observant, clever student that could be a supporting character as someone extremely resourceful in terms of helping his class sufficiently achieve with big goals as superheroes (or if not that, a very potentially well-written villain as a "saboteur rival" who stands out for committing such acts despite being a student in an academy who wants to top over Class 1-A), he instead just comes off as a spoiled brat who acts like he's "smart and knowledgable" to hide how immature and self-righteous he is (as well as putting on an egotistic front for the attention once he's seen cooling off sometimes), and it all shows how he will do anything to get his way towards being better than Class 1-A, making him come across as extremely self-centered and a pathological liar.
    2. He is too conceited and an shameless egotist who has a nonchalant expression and a self-satisifed smug look on his face to showcase his arrogant and condescending demeanor, he always likes being in the spotlight with his class, and he still acts unreasonably irritable or snappy towards Class 1-A if they get any of the attention at all despite the class being a group of equals, thus making him have an rather overly hysterical approach to his overinflated ego and his narcissism.
    3. Favoritism: He is extremely shameless and impudent about how much of a classist he is. Even though he's just a rival who is very melodramatic about his ambitions with him and always heckling at Class 1-A to claim his superiority of him and his class, he also demonstrates several forms of prejudice or discriminating Class 1-A for their high position/occupation as superheroes compared to his class of "superheroes in training" located in Musutafu of Japan, which are acts of class discrimination.
      • Especially since he always looks down on Class 1-A and bullies anyone in said class by trash-talking them and talking down to them over anything they do (no matter how petty and hypocritical the reasons are), which goes to the point that he truly thinks he and his class of superheroes are better than theirs and boasts about it in their faces for the sole purpose of rubbing his success on their faces while also annoying them and inconviencing them for his own amusement and enjoyment in feeling "superior" than them, thus creating needless animosity towards the two classes. Thankfully, he does get a taste of his own medicine whenever Kendo is around, and despite this, Neito happens to have bad publicity for his spiteful behavior as the infamous "trickster" of the U.A. academy.
    4. He tends to take advantage of scenarios to get what he wants, such as going after Midoriya to copy One For All as soon as Black Whip was brought under control, which he does since he believes he is not powerful on his own as an excuse for not being able to do things like a typical hero and must instead resort to underhanded tactics, which showcases his pathetically insecure side to how much of a opportunist he is.
    5. To make matters worse from here, he is a very mean-spirited smart-aleck who actively deceives several people in a sadistic fashion, and he always makes fun of everyone in Class 1-A for failing at something or even mock anyone for very petty reasons, using any opportunity to taunt them relentlessly such as him calling Bakugo an "idiot" for figuring out Neito's Copy quirk during an exam, he had thrown stones at them, harassed Midoryia by elbowing his head as "target practice" during lunch hours, and mocked Todoroki and Bakugo for failing the Provisional Hero License Exams (to which he even had the nerve to call Hanta, Eijiro and Denki "losers" over this rumor despite Eijiro confirming him to fail an exam also, but Neito claims that he passed to hide the fact).
      • This all shows how much he revels in screwing with Class 1-A to make them look bad for seemingly no particular reason other than his demented enjoyment in getting rises out of them and wanting to be superior than them while laughing and cackling at them in a sadistic way. Instead of coming off as a ambitious and excitable but endearing rival who has a playful attitude to his unconventional behavior and likes being competitive for the fun of a challenge without meaning any real harm on other people as a redeeming quality to their actions, he just comes off as a inconsiderate bully who is spiteful and a malicious spoilsport whose envy towards hating a whole class of heroes, allows him to do anything in his power to harass them and inflict conflict onto them like a vengeful prankster does, and instead of creating these plans to help enlighten the Pro-Heroes learn where they went wrong about their actions or doing this to punish those who do intend to cause harm in the city, he only does these spiteful actions to fullfill his self-obsession and bragging rights while relishing in all of his schemes with toppling Class 1-A to make them feel inferior to him and his class while rubbing the "success" in their faces for no reason other than his superiority-complex, thus making him a insensitive jerk.
      • This often goes to the point that he often comes across as a relentless nuisance whose shenanigans just showcase how he genuinely believes he and his class are actually better than Class 1-A, and also revels in humilating them and getting the attention in disrespecting his rivals daily for the enjoyment of it. This has gone to the point that his insanely harsh and petty-minded behavior that other Class 1-A students, had made other people like Denki for example, to find him overall "unhinged" as a rival for going maniacal in his bombastic rants and tirades he yells with spite, Midoryia even saw him as "nastier than usual" once Neito goes off a rant about how superior his class to them before laughing maniacally and getting hit with a shovel, and all he is, is just some self-absorbed nutcase with a unwarranted grudge towards the class because of how self-entitled, stuck-up and extremely boastful he acts, thus making him very much a "hate-sink" of the series.
    6. On top of acting deviously, being a pretentious heckler and a spoilsport towards a class, he's also a sore loser, which is shown when Class 1-B was ultimately beaten by 1-A in the Joint Training Arc, he tried to keep up his bravado and thinks Midoriya's power was a dud because of it being convenient, but he does not take the loss well at all and just barely contains himself, thus making him a bad sport as well.
    7. He does not respect Shinso's personal space, which shows since he often gets way too close to Shinso several times during the Joint Training Arc due to him being excited to fight alongside him against Class 1-A, and he looks very simpy when he does it while acting flamboyant and sassy towards him.
    8. Similar to Shamus from Pokémon, he usually gives off a psychotic grin/smile on his face to the nerve when he is preparing for an exam, talking to Class 1-B and even when he is taunting Class 1-A, which makes him come off as more of a psycho instead of laid-back.
    9. Speaking of which, there have been several times when Neito can act so incredibly unhinged that he has provided some genuinely creepy "mugging for the camera" close-up shots (especially when the visuals change into an intensely ominous aesthetic, with some shots creating some unsettling psychedelic-looking illusions in the background that is clearly shown to highlight how insanely toxic Neito's obsession over Class 1-A is), such examples of these moments include:
      • When he was teasing Midoryia about what villains will he face and mocking Izuku about his encounter with the Hero Killer with a spitefully sarcastic tone of voice, it shows his eyes in a dark position with some distorted wavy blue-red lines of colors in the background to show how scarily obsessive he can act (as well as telling Kendo how her disclipling Neito "got in the way" with his strategic schemes of toppling Class 1-A; all while saying this in a demented fashion before getting karate-chopped for calling Class 1-A "being full of idiots"),
      • When he said how "moronic" many villains tend to be with getting desperate with wanting something out of their revenge plans (all while having a sly expression with a somewhat unnerving angle shot that gives a shade on his eyes and sudden music change to his serious-sounding voice, all of which that just makes Neito appear as someone who is "creepily manipulative and psychopathic on the inside" underneath his smug smile and his nonchalant looking eyes),
      • When he said how his class had a 50% pass rate and emphasizing their chances of Class 1-A failing, which made him give off a sadistic looking gleeful smile while it cuts to a blue illusion background change and it cuts to Midoryia telling himself how he always forgets how much Neito hates Class 1-A with a burning passion behind his supposedly "calm" exterior.
      • When he made fun of Hanta, Denki and Eijiro Kirishima for having two people in Class 1-A failing the licensing exam and calling them "losers", and Neito was yelling at them with a extremely deranged smile with a scary looking blue-white-red color scheme that makes Neito look and act like a sadistic psychopath does, which unsettles Hanta and Denki (all while giving off a deranged sounding laugh to Eijiro confirming how Neito might have failed the last exam like Neito did one time, which unsettled Hanta, Denki and Eijiro Kirishima all at once).
      • And most importantly, the infamous moment of saying how Class 1-A was making a concert and boldly make his statement blunt by stating that Class 1-B's performance will embarass them to the point they'd "regret even showing up", and also telling them that they come prepared and bring hankies to wipe their tears once they realized how superior Class 1-B is. This scene has Neito's eyes go from looking aloof with a wide smile, to then have his eyes starts to look more and more wrinkled and crazy looking before making a mugging the camera close-up shot of his paranoid looking eye and then it cuts to him laughing maniacally like a total lunatic with a light-blue background (and even cackling in the manner that an megalomanical supervillain would do despite Neito himself not being a villain apparently!), this example makes him come across a little too maniacal and over-the-top with how incredibly self-pbsessed, overly competitive and overdramatic he genuinely is of the idea with exerting his superiority over Class 1-A to the point of insanity and obsession, and it just highlights how much spite, envy and resentment he really has for that class he antagonizes.
    10. Massive Hypocrisy: He made fun of Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, Sato, and Ashido for failing the final exams, yet was the only one in Class 1-B to fail the exams, making him surprisingly incompetent and very much an hypocrite. (It doesn't help that it's known that Neito performs poorly in actual tests, failed the summer exams and almost failed the fall exams, but refuses to admit it and continues mocking Class 1-A members for failing the Licensing Exam and five members for failing some exams, which he continues to taunt them about it frequently for no real reason other than having genuine spite towards them).
      • He also condemns Class 1-A for being "troublemakers" and "being immature", when he himself constantly behaves like a insanely jealous manchild who keeps stirring up trouble in his rivalry, is always uncontrollably laughing at them for any mistake they make while talking down to them too excessively like a middle-school bully does, and always acts like a immature jerk towards the class he keeps antagonizing and belittling.
      • During a theatre play of his, while he was improsiving as Romeo, he claims everyone in any story should get all the attention and praise for overcoming their conflicts in their story such as his classroom, Class 1-B, but contradicted himself when he also says that Class 1-A does not deserve any attention for being "disasters" without any valid reason in stating this, which is very ironic since Neito is essentially the walking disaster of his own classroom (that being Class 1-B).
    11. While battling All For One, he insulted an AFO-possessed Shigaraki to his face, which resulted him suffering from painful repercussions for his rude remark.
    12. He forced Itsuka Kendo (someone who regularly disciplines Neito for his excessive rants and targeting Class 1-A by karate-chopping him on the neck to give him a proper consequence for his petty actions), to take part in a beauty pageant so that Class 1-B could come out on top (which ends up making Itsuka humiliated overall), which shows how Neito would stoop to any low to provide his superiority to Class 1-A.
    13. Despite being intelligent and strategic, his "mischievous" antics tend to be a lot more unfunny, childish and irritating rather than charming since his hoaxes and pranks often have cheap and weak punchlines to them, or they're just otherwise witless in the long run. One example includes him tricking a foreign exchange student (named Pony Tsunotori) into unintentionally mocking two members of Class 1-A by whispering her and getting her to tell them a dumb joke about them touching someone until their "mama" doesn't know you (which was aimed at their expense to embarrass them), just for Neito to laugh at them maniacally for the whole situation, and Neito cackling at the students' humiliated reactions resulted in Neito getting karate chopped by Kendo as a punishment and Kendo disclipling him and telling him to "not fill your mind with crazy". What a charming little rascal ain't he?
    14. He tries way too hard to come off as graceful, classy, witty, slick and clever (especially in moments where he goes self-aware and break the fourth wall to say things that'd sound cool to him like "the supporting character has a ace up his sleeve", which he said towards Uraraka while explaining how his cloning superpowers work when he was floating to escape from Uraraka and close a door on her with a smug smirk), but instead of being actually "cool", he just comes off as an overbearing show-off who is extremely pompous, bombastic, obnoxious, mentally disturbed, vindictive, envious, way too sarcastic, and acting so incredibly supercillious that his obsession for toppling Class 1-A (including his acts of mocking and jeering them for any of their shortcomings), usually results in Neito making a fool of himself a large portion of the time and making himself end up being a persistent loser with a shoddy reputation as a Class 1-B student, which makes him come across as very annoying and unlikable on the long run.
      • While he does recieve plenty of karma for his petty antagonism and abrasive behavior (and even showing moments of being calm and analytical at times), he still doesn't learn anything from his mistakes with obsessing over the class and loudly favoring him and his own class to persistently target Class 1-A way too often, thus making him extremely overconfident, loudmouthed and a bit of a imbecile who doesn't know when to ever quit stirring up drama and staying out of trouble).
      • His moments of incompetence (despite having skill and intellect) is also highlighted in moments like when he managed to copy One for All during the Joint Training arc, but gets hit after finding out it does nothing for him since he only copied its weakest form.
      • It's not helping that Neito is in fact considered to be a good-looking person (said by Hagakure), but his awful personality makes his good looks all the more wasted. But unlike a certain himbo of similar downsides, Neito's negative behavior is very overwhelming regardless.
    15. Despite him being responsible to cause his very own class, Class 1-B, to look weak in the Cue the Forest Training Camp Arc because of Neito claiming his superiority over Class 1-A's skills when the class was praised for surviving a villain attack, and him saying Class 1-B can do way better than Class 1-A in that regard, without Class 1-B preparing themselves for this event; they were basically thrown into a situation unprepared, and Neito still ended up not being part of the fight that the class was involved in due to Neito taking remedial classes to avoid the punishment he knew was coming to him, thus making him a dirty coward who weaseled his way out of trouble and avoiding himself from getting what was coming to him.
      • Speaking of being a dirty coward, during his light novel act, he plays a punishment game (created by Mei Hatsune) with some of the class A and B students. However, when he was the last one left to go, Monoma tries to avoid the punishment by backing out, which annoyed everyone since it was his idea to make them keep playing and it shows how he was deliberately provoking everyone the entire time.
    16. He is also shown to be a slacker behind his actions. Even though he has skills, he has his allies let him copy their Quirk multiple times so he can actually train with it and become skilled.
    17. While his voice actors puts in a decent enough performance, his voice can be irritating to since his voice can be so shrill, everytime he yells loudly or is seen cackling maniacally (and prolongedly), it can easily get very ear-piercing and grating to listen to him at times. Sounding familiar?
    18. Unlike Katsuki Bakugo, all of Neito's worst qualities he shows frequently makes him feel like much less of a hero that he's supposed to be (and wanted to be), and acts more like a "villainous usurping saboteur" type of antagonist who concocts his schemes with wanting to sabotage the popularity and self-esteem of Class 1-A for his own selfish needs (almost acting in a nearly similar way to Mushu from Mulan 2) rather than being simply a anti-heroic rival with genuine ambition for becoming a hero, much like Bakugo. With the only exception of Neito serving as "The Puppet Master" to aid the Pro-Heroes during the final arc, throughout the entire series his obsession is so overwhelming and prominent that he still comes across as more of a evil-personified extremist with very little redeeming qualities and more of a designated hero with not much heroic qualities to subvert most of his jerkish and cringeworthy moments due to Neito's unpleasant rivalry he started despite redeeming himself at the end (even more so than Katsuki in the manga).
      • Even in the anime he was percieved as a potential villain by some characters, one solid example includes Eri (one of Izuku's friends), who thought Neito was a "bad guy" for his abrasive and antagonistic behavior towards Class 1-A once Mirio Togata told Eri how "Neito" became a representation of the downsides of the U.A academy, and instead of realizing how he might have took things a little too far with targeting Class 1-A, Neito just laughs at Eri, jeering at her by calling her a "foolish child" for assuming him to be a bad guy, and gets defensive by saying that anything he did towards Class 1-A was for "representing peace and justice" and was just maligned by Mirio, this makes him come across as delusional and irresponsible.
    19. His obsessing rivalry towards Class 1-A gets too predictable and tiresome, it gets to the point that he makes Squilliam Fancyson from SpongeBob SquarePants look more likable in comparison.
    20. Because of these reasons alone, he is the worst example of the Alpha Mean Guy in the anime and in the manga (even more so than Katsuki Bakugo, because he has tons of character development to make up for Katsuki's extremely jerkish behavior, where Neito is just a abrasive jerk in and outside of his redemption).
    21. In fact, so many people have despised Monoma in the manga, Kōhei Horikoshi (the Manga author for My Hero Academia) had to make him a little more comedic and light-hearted (and a little more likable and redeemable) because he was getting so much hate for the time the Manga was first out for being extremely brash and deranged in terms of antagonizing Class 1-A with tons of petty-minded behavior.

    Good Qualities

    1. He was more toned down when first introduced, he had a better beginning before he became caricatured as a "egotistical trickster bully rival who likes humilating a whole class of heroes". Where he first started off as a genuinely clever student who knew how to plan ahead, get the bigger picture of things, and was able to get into people's heads with his mind games while carrying a nonchalant attitude before his obsession with Class 1-A became his most defining trait.
    2. His comeuppances are incredibly hilarious and satisfying to see. He always gets a taste of his own medicine whenever he acts rude and sadistic towards Class 1-A (for example, Kendo chopping him in the neck, getting whacked on the neck by a bat and Shota Aizawa strangling him with his capture weapon).
      • This quality (alongside Neito's obsessive rants warranting it), could make him seem like a "love-to-hate" type of character, which is unusual and uniquely a funny trait applied to a anti-hero like Neito since this trait is typically used on comedic villains.
    3. His design both as a student and hero, is overall decent.
    4. He is still given some likable and admirable aspects of himself as a person (and to some extent his efforts and creativity as a hero) that goes beyond being him acting like a "smug attention-seeking rival":
      • He's capable of admitting when he's beaten, failed at something, or when people have changed, such as seeing Bakugo's cooperation with his team during the Joint Training arc.
      • When he's not belittling Class 1-A, he can be very supportive and understanding to Class 1-B plenty of times. Which is shown all the time, like when Monoma gives both her and his team a pep talk to encourage them to strive for the best, and he even empathized with Shinso over their similar situations, something that surprised Shinso. This shows that while Monoma is a colassal jerk, he still is trying to become a hero and do some good things for his class.
      • He has shown to have a very chilled personality and can come across as fairly intelligent (that is whenever he isn't taunting people or obsessing over toppling Class 1-A), this is a good example of him being calm for once since he drops his usually obnoxious attitude and comes off as pretty amiable, even cordially discussing his quirk with Midoriya (his rival he has amniosity towards with).
      • Even while his massive ego blinds everyone of Neito's good sides because of his awful personality, but he is also talented and capable in many things outside the hero field, such as his acting skills with improvising as Romeo (which managed to move Kendo and Reiko while his class felt unnerved that Monoma can play a role so different from his real self very well) and even has good cooking skills, which others find amazing.
      • Despite being a complete hypocrite with a bad reputation and many of his actions and decisions being overall inexcusable, he was sometimes right about calling out Class 1-A for having moments of causing trouble even though the class itself always have good intentions and still do good for people regardless of any mistake they made.
      • He redeemed himself during the final arc, where he used the teleportation Quirk to help the Pro-Heroes in combat while playing the role of "The Puppet Master", he managed to put up a fight against Shigaraki (as well as foiling Shigaraki's plan without Neito even knowing it) and has cried when seeing that Bakugou nearly died from a heart explosion.
      • Even though his Copy Quirk was considered useless on its own (and still has a weakness that goes against him biologically), he did find a creative way to turn it into a powerful quirk on certain occasions like cloning Bakugo's Fire Quirk in battle, or the time he revealed that he deliberately had his costume designed to fool all observers into thinking that he can only copy a maximum of three Quirks when there are four things he can clone with the clocks on his outfit. Which helps showing how Neito is shown to be a capable hero and an excellent strategist when the time calls for it.
    5. He does have a explained backstory for wanting to be a hero. He wanted to be a hero despite being underestimated for his Quirk alone, this pointer can make him earn some sympathy points from the audience.

    Trivia

    1. His homeroom teacher is Vlad King, which explains why he has a one-sided rivalry with Class 1-A.
    2. His design was based on Dane DeHaan's version of the Green Goblin from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
      • Speaking of which, this may have been unintentional, but his design resembles Takumi Aldini from Food Wars! - 92nd Generation (especially when Takumi is wearing a black tuexdo suit and also sports a buttoned outfit just like Neito does except it's black, has a cape and with a pokla-dot tie instead of it being a white outfit).
    3. His name comes from "monomane", the Japanese word for "mimicry". While it's possibly accidental, his name is also similar to "monomania", this would describe his obsession with Class 1-A.
    4. According to Horikoshi, Monoma is based off a real person.

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