The Live-Action My Hero Academia Movie Must Cut One Problematic Character

Mineta Minoru has been one of the most divisive My Hero Academia characters — here’s why he needs to be eliminated from the live-action movie.

There is a vast array of amazing characters to adapt for the My Hero Academia live-action movie — and Minoru Mineta isn’t one of them. Though the hero-in-training is small in stature, he’s caused a pretty big divide among fans through his sexually charged antics. While some fans find the antics charmingly funny, there is a large subset of the My Hero Academia fandom that find his behavior problematic. Ultimately, this behavior is exactly why Mineta needs to be cut from the live-action movie.

Mineta Minoru made his first appearance in season 1, episode 5 of My Hero Academia, which is now in season 5. He is a fellow classmate in Class 1-A with a quirk called “Pop Off,” which allows him to take adhesive spheres from his head, and goes by the pro-hero name Grape Juice. He began his school career as a coward with little chance of making it in the hero world, but he’s found inspiration in Midoriya Izuku’s bravery. While it originally seemed Mineta was just a little girl-crazy, it quickly devolved into more serious breaches of consent, including groping his female classmates and spying on them in various states of undress. His objectification and breach of consent towards his female classmates have turned a large portion of the fanbase away from Mineta as a favorable character.

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Mineta’s behavior is divisive enough in animation, despite gaining a little bit of heroic bravery and possibly expressing his love for Deku, and his actions would translate terribly into a live-action character. There are some things that can be deemed “acceptable” in animation that are purely inappropriate when they’re converted into live-action; Mineta groping and spying on his fellow 15-year-old classmates is just one of them. Whatever appeal there is to his “humor,” if there is any, would be lost when played out by actual children. The series has attempted to give Mineta somewhat of a redemption arc, but there is little the series could do to make his character appropriate for a live-action film.

When it comes to being a perverted character, Mineta has taken it above and beyond. Uraraka, Asui, and Momo are his most frequent victims, but he doesn’t seem to be picky when it comes to his quest for women going into season 5 of My Hero Academia and beyond. He’s made inappropriate comments towards female classmates and heroes alike, objectified their bodies, and taken any chance he can find to spy on them, like in the locker rooms and during their trip to the hot springs. He has groped his classmates without consent on multiple occasions, grabbing Asui’s chest during the USJ attack, attaching himself to Yaomomo, and taken advantage of rescuing Ashido Mina to press himself against her breast.

There is a large portion of My Hero Academia fans who would be thrilled to see Grape Juice eliminated from the live-action film. Some fans have raised a petition against My Hero Academia‘s manga publisher to include content warnings for Mineta’s repeated breaching of consent, as well as petitions to have Shinsou Hitoshi, the brainwashing student from class 1-C, replace Mineta in class 1-A. In a cultural climate that is fighting for sexual assault to be taken seriously — especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement — including Mineta Minoru in the live-action My Hero Academia film would be a disservice.

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