| “ | Minoru: Two birds with one stone! I am a genius! Momo: You are the worst! |
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| ~ Minoru after sabotaging Momo's chance to win during the obstacle course of the U.A. Sports Festival by attaching himself to her. |
Minoru Mineta, also known as Grape Juice, is a supporting character in My Hero Academia.
He is voiced by Ryō Hirohashi in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Brina Palencia in the English dubbed version.
What Makes Him a Scrappy?[]
- Even though he was meant to be presented as one of the heroes, unlike all of the other heroic characters, Mineta shows no heroic traits whatsoever, only wanting to be a hero sheerly for selfish reasons, just to look cool and to get girls.
- He's meant to be funny, but rather comes off as irritating, given his perverted behavior.
- He's too much of a dirty coward as he often act all high and might but quickly panics, runs away in fear and even shows willingness to abandon others once he's confronted by a someone who he sees as a threat, mostly villains.
- He usually likes when other recognize what he does despite mostly being shared with others as well as others putting much more effort than him with said shared deeds, one example is when he overheard that Sero might not go to the camp because Mineta did most to pass despite Sero saving him from Midnight while failing the exam in his place, which is considered amongst his most loathsome moments.
- He groped Tsuyu (without her consent) and constantly talked about her boobs during the USJ arc.
- He passed the obstacle course by using his Quirk to attach himself to Momo's butt.
- Once he tried to peep in the girls' locker room and got painfully poked in the eye by Jiro (which was perfectly justified for obvious reasons).
- Mocked Bakugo and Todoroki for failing the Provisional Hero License Exam and once it was revealed they had another chance to pass he quickly attempted to convice them not take the chance, giving more reasons for fans to dislike him due to the two's massive popularity.
- Some people find him to be a possible sexual predator, given that he often peeks on girls.
- Even Kota who is much younger than him knows it's wrong and calls him out for his lustful acts.
- Even those who don't mind his perverted behavior find him uninteresting, as he lacks characterization or depth other than being a pervert and wanting to become a hero solely to be popular with women. He also generally lacks any plot relevance, only existing as a gag character. That said, he did develop in later seasons and by the fifth season his perverted traits were all but gone after being brainwashed by Mina, which some fans appreciated.
- However, this doesn't hold up much since he never properly apolagized for his perverted behavior or his wrong-doings towards the girls, unlike Katsuki Bakugo or Endeavor who at least had the decense of apologizing those they once hurt regardless if they were beyond forgiveness or not.
- Some people hate that he took Shinso's place in Class 1-A, given the latter is generally considered a better character, even Aoyama was a better option to stay despite being the U.A. traitor, which in-universe happens with the whole class not wanting him to leave.
- His outfit (which resembles a diaper) isn't considered good either.
- In the Japanese version of the anime (especially the manga), with no hesitation, he makes a pedophilic comment on Eri (a 6 to 7 year old) , saying that he couldn't wait to see how she looks like in 10 years. What makes this even more squickier is that Mineta would be around 25 or 26 and Eri would be around 16 or 17 years of age', which makes this ephebophilia (depending on your view on the matter).
- Unsurprisingly, he's often ranked low on popularity polls.
Trivia[]
- He is the only MHA character who counts as a scrappy, as even other controversial characters have a fanbase.
- To highlight how absolutely despised Mineta is, there are thousands of fanfics where he's expelled with his spot replaced by someone else (very often Shinso), or just outright adapted out. On Archive of Our Own, the tags "Minoru Mineta Doesn't Exist", "Shinsou Hitoshi Replaces Mineta Minoru", and "Mineta Minoru is Expelled from U.A. High School" all have thousands of fanfics attached to them.
- Although Mineta does have a very small fanbase which might seem to disqualify him from being The Scrappy at first, even his "fans" admit that he's not a very interesting or well-written character and they mostly just like to see him get his comeuppance for his perverted acts, so it can be said that his fanbase is ironic rather than anything else, thus still allowing him to qualify as a Scrappy. That said, after later issues toned down his perverted personality and showed him risk his own life to rescue Tokoyami, his fanbase has grown more vocal, though this isn’t enough to Rescue Him From The Scrappy Heap.
- Curiously, his voice actors (both of whom are female) are fans of him and have fun voicing him. His English VA even took to Instagram and defended Mineta, claiming that he is still developing mentally and gets an unnecessary amount of hate compared to other perverted characters in anime.
External links[]
- Minoru Mineta on the My Hero Academia Wiki
- Minoru Mineta on the Heroes Wiki
- Minoru Mineta on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Minoru Mineta on the Likability Scaling Purgatory Wiki
[]
 Scrappies
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