Straight from his introduction to the story, it’s not very hard to tell that Mineta’s reasoning for becoming a part of the hero courseat the prestigious UA is less…noble compared to the likes of his peers, and doesn’t seem to take his duty of becoming a hero all that seriously, with his comedic one-liners and peeping. Instead, becoming a hero is more of a fun thing, like Aizawa said when he gave a wake-up call to 1A.

The students definitly perk up after this and give it their best shot—and this mindset continues into the next arc featuring Basic Training. But in Mineta’s case, he seems to be affected the least by Aizawa’s message, seeing as he was the one person who still remained his same self, joking and playing around.

But that road for Mineta changes drastically, as it does for the others, when the League of Villains descend.

As I said at the start, Mineta doesn’t really take the idea of heroic duties or his own aspirations all that seriously. And it leads to him seeming almost blissfully ignorant to what being a Hero truly holds for a person.

It’s almost like that of a young child: a hero is simply someone who does “cool” and “heroic” deeds and is adored by everyone in response. A short way to put it is that he sees the golden destination over the journey. The long amounts of work and experience-gaining and training and self-reflection and blood and sweat and tears, and overall, dedication—needed to earn that status as a Pro.

Heck, even his first hero costume is based around looking “cool”, a cape being a common example of carrying that connotation—Mineta doesn’t seem to highlight any other qualities like practicality.

Mineta’s image of being “cool” is shrouded in unclearness, even to himself, yet it’s just a passing thought, because it’s the ideal destination that he sees, not the work to reach it. Or even a thought that he might be imperfect as he is no.

Anyway, back on topic. Within a small amount of time spent in the school, our young heroes have their first brush the with the true nature of being a hero—fighting real villains. And this event serves as his first true wake-up.

Despite seeming freaked out along with his classmates when Kurogiri whisked them all away, Mineta still does not take the situation seriously. But when he entertains the chance of their demise, he starts rely heavily on the Pros and does not want to dabble in facing villains, because he’s afraid of them.

He feels even more reluctant towards trying when he hears Tsuyu’s sound logic towards All Might losing. Which is why he has such a face of pure shock when Deku tells them “We have to win!”, even though they both could tell the water villains were powerful. Why would Deku do it?

Mineta doesn’t think there’s anything he can do to stop the villains, his own inaction due to fear and lack of self-confidence turns that “I can’t do this” into a “we can’t do this”. He dreams of being a cool hero, but sells himself short; trying to convince his peers not to act in the face of danger.

His logic becomes that of: if you are scared, then you shouldn’t do anything, therefore if you do something, you aren’t scared.

Being a hero makes you cool.

To him, heroes are completely fearless and virtuous individuals who never falter or fail. They just can save them, the non-Pros, because…they’re heroes.

This group is not that, Deku and Tsuyu might as well be playing pretend, so what could they possibly do here and now? But what he doesn’t realise is that they way he acts, crying and being pessimistic, makes him look very “uncool” by his own logic—not realising that these situations are what heroes have to go through near daily.

Again, his mindset is like a kid who just found out about heroes. And the lack of clarity towards this mindset leads to an assumption Mineta makes about Deku and Tsuyu and a question that stuck with him despite being lost in the moment.

He comes to the conclusion that they aren’t scared one bit, because Midoriya planned anyway, because he was apparently fearless enough to declare that they have to win. But as Mineta is about to notice, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Enter, Midoriya. He genuinely can’t think of what else to say to Midoriya as he still insists on pursuing escape themselves, and that’s when he realises that the two are not so different after all. In this scene, Midoriya becomes a significant foil for Mineta, which puts him on the map to grow further.



As seen in the above panel, Mineta sees Midoriya trembling. He’s noting everyone’s abilities, he’s saying they can do what is impossible to Mineta and preparing for attack right in front of him, but a small part of him still doesn’t want to move. If they lost, they could all die.

Neither are any better than other, yet despite that; one acts and one does not. Does Mineta’s mindset towards “coolness” really hold up?

Mineta realises that his philosophy has been challenged, which leaves him in questioning. And ultimately, he decides to lend Midoriya his help, inspired by his drive in spite of indecision.

This is a similar lesson what Kirishima learnt in middle school. Kirishima considered leaving the path of being a hero all together, because Mina’s collapse proved to him that some people moved and tried to save even though they were scared, rendering all his words about “manliness” obsolete. But Crimson Riot taught him that there’s nothing to be ashamed of, as true strength comes from what you do in response to that fear, not whether you’re born without a worry in mind.

Mineta wasn’t acting alone, he was still partially relying on his friends, and it’s clear he still wasn’t in a confident state with how he frantically threw his balls; but he had finally done something that him a few minutes ago wouldn’t have dared do.

He had kept saying that it would be a better option to wait for their saviours, yet those people he doubted jumped head on to defy the odds, and they came out escaping in one piece.

So maybe there is more to a “cool” hero than a fearless and perfect individual…

Since that day, Mineta doesn’t seem to give what he learned back at USJ much more thought than in the moment. While he did pick up the ability to strategize in the Sports Festival, he still made poor decisions, sacrificing a proper chance to learn to satisfy his own desires—and unfortunately gaining nothing. If you don’t count getting an extra fear.

Tsuyu’s question and his own willingness to fight come back to a forefront in his exam against Midnight.

During the FInal Exam Arc, Mineta once again doesn’t take the situation completely seriously, treating it nothing to lose sleep over as he lacks any strategy.

He’s fighting a busty hero and has a pretty good teammate, so everything will be just fine. The reactions of his classmates towards their own situations with alert, or hesitance in the case of Momo, show he’s still very ignorant. Mineta’s thoughts at that moment couldn’t be any more wrong, and the duo learn this quite quickly, and hence the differences between this match and the Flood Zone scuffle are highlighted.

Within a few minutes, his partner is down for the count, lying on the lap of the Midnight, and is stuck in a corner, with just a single breathe away from failing. In a second, he’s gone from pure excitement to giving up completely. Mineta complains about how bad the situation for him is, but sticks with doing nothing about out of fear, just like before.

Unlike the Flood Zone, he now has nobody to rely on, and no person to push him to make a decision. He’s completely alone, with no other person’s flaws exposed but his own.

Chapter 67’s title is even called “Stripping the Varnish”!

The amount of scraping by in the past came back to bite him and it lead to the worst thing of all, people don’t see him the way he wants them to.

Recovery Girl dialogue calls back to Aizawa’s message of pushing your limits at UA. Here, becoming a Hero is quite a serious thing, the students absolutely have to feel pressure in order to climb higher and closer to their respective goals, but what Mineta done so far gives her the impression that he lacks that feeling. He hasn’t got the dedication to whatever it is he is pursuing, if there’s anything he’s aiming for in the first place.

He sees the destination but not the journey.

But it turns out that he does have a goal after all, not to just be cool, but to be cool with girls. And that leads him straight to his dilemma, and it’s not even a question of his actions contradicting his goals, but really if Mineta has the drive to work for that goal and earn that status of coolness. There is a difference between those with and without goals in MHA but there is also one between those dedicated and those who aren’t.

His lack of urgency and tendency to turn the other way lead an unaware Mineta to complain about being challenged as if it was a punishment, not wanting to face these flaws he’s had since introduction. But he remembers the fact that his fearful reluctance made Tsuyu question him even bothering to enrol in the school, feeling the very reason he went to all the effort of making it to UA being criticised.

And the following flashback pretty much supports this, as his reasons for joining the school seem like something completely on a whim, as he gives a jealous expression towards a classmate being surrounded by cute girls, without seemingly doing anything. Mineta never once realised that he might have to work for respect, instead he would just get it right off the bat.

Because of that, he started to believe that if he if he did something considered “cool” without any work, things would work out for him. Heroes are cool because…they just are. Because everyone thinks they are. Because girls think they are.

In the beginning saw his goal, but from there it got worse, as he thought he was pretty much there the moment he walked through the door.

After seeing the state that Midoriya was in, Mineta started to see the heroes he witness protect them differently. Eraser Head, All Might and Midoriya all put their own lives on the line, not stopping even when the circumstances were near fatal.

Aizawa’s head got bashed in, he had his arm twisted—but still raised his head to stop Shigaraki from killing Tsuyu. The entire operation was with the purpose of killing All Might, yet he told them all not to fear and kept pushing himself until he was ragged to save the students and the heroes, something that Mineta’s seems to have never really seen a person do.

Midoriya is just a kid like him, scared of the chance of being ripped apart by multiple villains, but still jumped head on to face them, saying they all had to win. He kept rushing back into the fight after even though the priority was escape.

They all had the odds stacked against them, but they swallowed it and fought on anyway, all three left being wrecked by the end. That’s not something that ordinary people can do, which is what caused his childish idea to change—people are heroes because their cool. And that’s the main conflict of his character, what being cool means to him. Their actions didn’t earn his respect because they were praised in the end, it was because they took that scary step that they could have otherwise couldn’t. Staying focused. That was one of the important things Mineta was missing!

Now that he sees why those heroes are so cool, he understands and admits that he’s not that at all but his whole strategy was that he could reach the dream of winning over women. It’s quite interesting that the way he does it is almost like a bluff.

Midoriya had previously said that “the moment the enemy thinks they’ve won, represents your best chance”. What Mineta said sounded really dumb when you say it out loud, however Mineta is showing motivation to act even in a precarious situation and shows that he hasn’t been scared off by Midnight’s sadistic expressions, almost like how All Might smiles even in a bloody and torn state.

And so, finishing his time of running away, he takes Midnight head on with her scent full blast, and emerges victorious. Having learnt an important lesson, heroes can feel scared, but it’s what you do in that moment that truly counts. He overcomes one of his major personal flaws which is his tendency to give up quickly and stay put, and now does what he needs to do.

Well…not that that’s always worked out for him a good way.

Mineta has inconsistent values. He knows what he sees in the people who saved him, but he still hasn’t managed to grasp more about the idea of being cool such as showing respect and restraint to other and remembering that heroes don’t do whatever they please. Even Kota calls him out on this but he doesn’t consider this point of view much more.

His actions wildly contradict his goals, and if he hopes to be a the “cool dude” that he’s aiming for, this should be a key realisation for Mineta in his quest to figure out what a cool hero is.

