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| “ | (Monoma): I heard a little rumor about Class 1-A. Two people! You had TWO people fail the licensing exam you LOSERS! (Sero): Monoma from Class B. (Kaminari, unnerved): He's just as unhinged as usual.. (Kirishima): Bet you were the only one in your class to fail, just like in the final huh? (Monoma): [Begins cackling] (Kirishima, terrified): That wasn't an answer. (Monoma): Heh. Actually... Every one of us passed! We've pulled ahead of you big shots! |
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| ~ Monoma in the Shie Hassaikai Arc, when Eijiro asks Neito if he failed a licensing exam too. |
Neito Monoma, also known as Phantom Thief, is a supporting character in the My Hero Academia franchise.
He is voiced by Kōhei Amasaki in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Austin Tindle in the English version.
What Makes Him a Shonen Rival?[]
- Anti-Heroic: Monoma's role as a superhero-in-training with the saga is wanting to be a hero even though his Quirk was deemed as not so powerful as the rest, and he seeks to take on villains even though his methods for becoming a hero and helping his Class 1-B classmates strive in popularity as heroes can also go overboard like harassing 1-A publicly to help his classmates strive in becoming great heroes.
- Honorable: He does show a few factors and semblance of honor throughout his redemption arc (and sometimes even before the arc) that shows that Monoma does have a heart of gold.
- He did his best to help understanding Eri's quirk (apologizing when he figured out it was a "blank" and also managed to talk about it with Midoriya rather calmly).
- He has comforted Eri in the Dark Hero Arc.
- He was genuinely affected by Bakugo's near death and cried out for him in disbelief, thus revealing that Monoma does show genuine sympathy for the well-being of others and it shows how he did care for him despite being a colossal jerk towards 1-A itself initially.
- He was also capable of admitting when he's beaten or failed at something.
- Intelligent: While incredibly reckless and a slacker who's not academically the best, he is analytically and tactically gifted when he has to be, especially since he has figured out how to turn the Copy Quirk (a rather useless power) into something quite useful and effective if used properly and wisely. A few more qualities to list includes:
- He was shown to be very adept at using misdirection, trickery, and mind-games to gain the upper hand (ex. taking a page from Shinso's book (or rather, takes his Quirk) during the Joint Training Arc in an attempt to provoke Midoriya into revealing the location of his allies), and more of his smarter moments show when he studied and figured out Uraraka’s strategy of using the stadium debris against Bakugo during her battle with him, and revealed to Uraraka that Monoma's very hero costume is merely a disguise to make people think he can copy three Quirks when he can actually copy four of them (for about 5 minutes in fact), thus showing how strategic, smart and competent he can be at times.
- Naturally Talented: In-universe, he is a good actor and chef.
- His acting skills with improvising as Romeo managed to move both: Kendo and Reiko while his class felt unnerved that Monoma can play a role so differently than usual.
- In the manga, he appears to have good cooking skills.
- He has shown to have dexterity and a ton of impressive powers such as his Poltergeist power he used to attack Izuku.
- Regarding his Quirk, despite the fact it's not as strong and versatile as the other Quirks; he was still able to find a creative way to turn it into a (somewhat) powerful quirk on certain occasions to make it more unpredictable in group battles with more opportunities for him to copy various Quirks from anyone and can use it instinctively like cloning Bakugo's Fire Quirk or Kirishima's Hardening Quirk in battle for example
- Arrogant/Jerkish: Throughout the series, his arrogance and smugness are a prominent reason for his bad reputation as a student. With a few traits as a boastful heckler with such traits like:
- Being generally pretentious, is often sarcastic and brash, and is extremely overconfident and scornful of how his class 1-B can easily beat 1-A and tries to gloat about it at any moment.
- He also appears to be a spoilsport who shows very little-to-no sportsmanship since he relishes in putting 1-A down with a level of childish enjoyment in having an insanely egotistical persona he puts out publicly as vain attempts to stir up trouble towards 1-A that makes him a sheer nuisance to 1-A, and is frequently a petty-minded bully towards the entire Class 1-A as he relishes in inconveniencing them.
- He has once insulted an AFO-possessed Shigaraki in his face (which resulted Monoma suffering from painful repercussions).
- He sometimes acts rude with some of his classmates on occasion such as Kendo.
- It's not helping that he usually tends to be a shameless jerk towards said 1-A in a rather unpleasantly envious fashion.
- Pursues a Big-End Goal: He seeks to become a hero by devious and underhanded means. His incompetence and dramatic behavior aside, he did also have a noble goal for assisting the Pro Heroes to defeat All For One's forces by causing an ambush surprise to outmaneuver AFO and eventually being acknowledged for his efforts by multiple people at the end of the story (both of which he did manage to succeed at).
- Cynical: He has shown to have a skeptical view on several things, such as villains themselves often being "moronic" and "desperate for revenge", believing Class 1-A are only being heroes for the attention and not because of righteous reasons since he believes everyone has a selfish motive for what they want to accomplish, and also believes that heroes should resort to "un-heroic conduct" match up in a competent field of being a superhero as aspired.
- Pessimistic: Before he became more optimistic and tactical, he felt put down and like he couldn't do anything when people kept telling him when he was a child, which made him believe that he couldn't become a hero with the Quirk he has before he grew determination to be a hero, which helped him train his Quirk.
- Irritable: Even though he's mainly zealous despite trying to appear as mostly nonchalant and while he's not as ill-tempered as Bakugo, but he does lose his cool at many instances (even more so than Todoroki), especially the moment when he was deeply infuriated by how Bakugo's personality had changed for the fact Monoma couldn't believe that Bakugo would protect Jirou during the Joint Training Arc (and Monoma had a bit of a meltdown with this disbelief to the point of being pretty overdramatic, much to Kirishima and Kaminari's mild surprise).
- Persistent: Undoubtedly his most prominent trait as a character (and additionally his fatal flaw as Class 1-A's infamous rival).
- An frequent running gag centered on Monoma in the narrative is his excessive devotion and eagerness to topple Class 1-A itself in the form of harassment and bullying that Monoma intended to mock, ridicule and embarrass them publicly so he and his class can come out superior at any given opportunity (which fails all the time and ends up having Kendo frequently silencing him with an karate chop to his neck) and also dramatizing his passionate desire to strengthen his own class by finding reasons to bring attention and popularity to said class to make their presence widely known and respected in the academy (which, while onlookers were impressed by 1-B's performances sometimes, wasn't as life-changing or fantastical as Monoma makes it out to be).
- As a matter of fact, despite being pretty unhinged about winning against 1-A to the point of seeking many "strategic advantages" to hold over 1-A, ironically, he never really wins during this rivalry since the execution of his many plans of his to bait, boast, and belittle 1-A with overzealous tirades and boasting, consistently ended up being rather impractical and ineffectual as 1-A's rival since it added up to nothing major besides Kendo disciplining him for Monoma's shortcomings, getting knocked out and silenced by multiple people such as Aizawa or Awase when Kendo's not there, his own teacher Vlad King would sometimes tell him to chill out; all of which that shows how much Monoma makes a fool of himself multiple times, and Monoma's deranged heckling essentially made his class less than remarkable and overlooked by most onlookers, and thus giving Monoma a bad impression overall (if not left humiliating the class due to Monoma unintentionally setting them up for failure without realizing that his words and actions had caused it) since he was shown to be way too dedicated in toppling Class 1-A at any given moment to the point of obsession and ill-advised opportunism.
- However, this trait can be a double-edged sword for him since, despite his obsession for besting 1-A added up to nothing major than he initially intended rather than succeeding in his rivalry with the class (given his surname being a play on the word "monomania"), and yet his persistence in training himself as a strategic hero proves that this would do him wonders rather than feuding with 1-A and repeatedly failing to come out on top as a rival.
- An frequent running gag centered on Monoma in the narrative is his excessive devotion and eagerness to topple Class 1-A itself in the form of harassment and bullying that Monoma intended to mock, ridicule and embarrass them publicly so he and his class can come out superior at any given opportunity (which fails all the time and ends up having Kendo frequently silencing him with an karate chop to his neck) and also dramatizing his passionate desire to strengthen his own class by finding reasons to bring attention and popularity to said class to make their presence widely known and respected in the academy (which, while onlookers were impressed by 1-B's performances sometimes, wasn't as life-changing or fantastical as Monoma makes it out to be).
- Redemption Arc: While not at all a villain and more of an unheroic heckler towards Class 1-A themselves, but he does help the Pro-Heroes like his roles as the "Puppet Master" and "The Man Behind the Curtain", where he teleported all the heroes (including 1-A) to the Final War by copying Kurogiri's Warp Gate and he also helped foiling Shigaraki's and All For One's plans as well.
- Is a Blood Knight: Rather in a more derisive and sneakier fashion than most examples, Monoma still does show to love partaking in any fight or setup to get Class 1-A facing his to challenge them if this means he can make fun of them and come off as superior while competing with them and wanting to make 1-A find ways to lose by provoking them relentlessly.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Ever since Class 1-A got popular, he has a serious "superiority-inferiority complex" going on with him.
- He puts on a snobbish, unstable, arrogant and narcissistic front in the eyes of many so he can repeatedly try to degrade 1-A while acting conceited (often for trivial reasons) in order to motivate the students of 1-B because they feel inferior to them (including Monoma himself secretly fearing and feeling threatened by 1-A), and a result, his self-esteem issues had become more troubled as he was starting to become incredibly obsessed with the goal of "class superiority" in itself and has grown several insecurities such as seeing himself as unable to become the "main character" in his own story despite the fact he believes everyone is the focus in their own stories, and he feels like he has to be "manipulative" and "opportunistic" since he believes he is not powerful on his own, can't do things like a typical hero does and feels like he has to resort to devising sneaky tactics and partake in lies and deception as a habit to get ahead in terms of heroic status.
- This would also explain his plans with why he wants to desperately help his class, Class 1-B, to come off as superior and to make 1-A look bad for any mistake they make or get them to be competitive so Class 1-B can win and then rise up while also be given lots of attention so they can remain beloved as superheroes just like Class 1-A (if not more so than them).
- Wears Blue/Black: Monoma's hero outfit is mostly black and has a light-blue tie.
- Is a Token Evil Teammate: Monoma is always the brunt and primary cause for Class 1-B having rivalry against Class 1-A, and he gleefully antagonizes his rival class by mocking, disrespecting, poking fun, belittling, provoking, taunting, insulting, badgering, bullying and even threatening them for getting in unfortunate situations with a sense of malice with wanting to aggravate, bother and annoy them while acting like a cartoonishly evil genius every time he tries to annoy Class 1-A. Additionally (and ironically), Monoma is usually the only student who perceives Class 1-A themselves as morally bad people out of everyone in the anime and manga.
External Links[]
- Neito Monoma on the Heroes Wiki
- Neito Monoma on the My Hero Academia Wiki
- Neito Monoma on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Neito Monoma on the Antagonists Wiki
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