Minoru Mineta / Grape Juice

Name: Minoru Mineta

Gender: Male

Hero Name: Fresh-Picked Hero “Grape Juice”

School / Class: U.A. High School, Hero Course, Class 1-A, Student No. 19

Former School: Kasagiyama Junior High School

Birthday: October 8

Height: 108 cm

Blood Type: A

Birthplace: Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Favorite Things: Women

Personality: Extremely perverted, lecherous, cowardly but surprisingly clever

First-Person Pronoun: “Oira” (a casual, childish “I”)

Quirk: Pop Off

Hero Costume Concept: Emphasizes mobility and easy access to his hair-balls

Voice Actor (Japanese): Ryo Hirohashi

U.A. official material describes him as “a brainy type despite appearances, driven entirely by unending lust” whose goal as a hero is “to get popular with girls.”

Minoru Mineta is one of the main student side characters in My Hero Academia and a classmate of Izuku Midoriya in U.A. High School’s Hero Course.

He is instantly recognizable by his small body and the grape-like balls on his head, which are the physical manifestation of his Quirk.

Though he enters U.A. because he thinks “heroes are cool and popular with girls,” his ideals shift after real combat experiences.

He gradually moves from “heroes are cool so I want to be one” to “you’re a hero because you are cool and courageous when it counts.”

Mineta is a walking embodiment of unchecked libido, openly and constantly lecherous toward almost every woman he sees.

He wants to become a Pro Hero primarily so he can be surrounded by and admired by women.

He frequently tries to peek into girls’ locker rooms and baths or “accidentally” touch his female classmates.

These attempts are usually shut down instantly, followed by harsh beatdowns and scolding; even teachers call him “the incarnation of sexual desire.”

He stares at girls’ chests in class, proposes perverted rules (like “all girls’ skirt length must be 30 cm above the knee” when running for class representative), and spouts crude one-liners.

Many of these lines have turned him into a kind of “infamous mascot” of Class 1-A.

Despite his perversion, Mineta is not emotionally strong.

Under pressure he often panics, cries, or screams, and he tends to blurt out negative thoughts and worst-case scenarios after something bad happens.

Tsuyu Asui once calls him out for “rubbing salt into wounds” by voicing only pessimistic takes after an incident.

Still, when push comes to shove, he can show genuine courage and determination.

Academically, he is smarter than he acts.

He ranks reasonably high on tests and is good at quick thinking, trickery, and exploiting loopholes.

During events like the U.A. Sports Festival, he comes up with clever schemes to get ahead of stronger classmates.

He is petty and jealous at times, especially toward popular or handsome boys, and reacts with small-time glee when the class hierarchy “shifts” in his favor.

He is also startlingly “equal-opportunity” in his lust.

He gets excited over non-human looking women, elders, and almost anything feminine, sometimes mentally “correcting” people into younger or more glamorous forms (he imagines Chiyo Shuzenji in her youth, for example).

Despite everything, Mineta is not a villain.

He has moments of real loyalty, empathy, and bravery that show he genuinely aspires to live up to the hero title—just filtered through a thick layer of horniness.

In middle school, Mineta envied classmates who were popular with girls.

He saw himself as short, ugly, and not cool, and he believed girls would never like him the way he was.

From that inferiority complex came a plan: become a Pro Hero because heroes are cool and admired by women.

Driven by this extremely straightforward motive, he pushed himself to get into none other than the top hero academy, U.A.

Even after entering U.A., his sense of inferiority does not fully vanish because he is surrounded by insanely talented peers.

When Shoto Todoroki and Katsuki Bakugo temporarily fail the Provisional Hero License Exam, he smugly celebrates that “the hierarchy has collapsed,” feeling for a brief moment that he stands above them.

Yet, his bond with his classmates grows stronger over time.

He visits Izuku in the hospital after the Sports Festival, willingly overuses his Quirk to help the class in the license exam, and is moved to tears by his friends’ struggles and growth.

Quirk: Pop Off

Mineta’s Quirk, “Pop Off,” allows him to produce and pull off ball-like objects from his head that resemble purple grapes.

He calls these spheres “Pop-Off balls,” and they have extraordinary adhesive properties.

Once detached, these balls stick firmly to almost any surface and can immobilize targets without harming them.

The adhesive strength depends on Mineta’s physical condition—on a good day, they can remain stuck for an entire day.

The balls do not stick to Mineta himself.

When they bounce off him, they have a soft, rubbery rebound, allowing him to use them as platforms or trampolines.

He can produce them seemingly without limit, but tearing off too many at once causes his scalp to bleed.

This also makes his fighting style visually comedic but physically painful for him.

Because his only move is “pull and throw,” his Quirk is not well-suited for direct combat against powerful opponents.

However, it excels at crowd control, restraint, and non-lethal takedowns, which is ideal for capturing villains without causing injuries.

He can use the balls as makeshift footholds to scale walls at high speed, swing or hop across them, or anchor himself or allies to surfaces.

The downside is that once a ball sticks to someone or something besides Mineta, he cannot remove it until the adhesive time wears off.

During the training camp Quirk-strengthening session, his task is to repeatedly pull off balls until his scalp no longer bleeds, effectively toughening his head and increasing his stamina.

Despite looking like candy or fruit, the balls are inedible; consuming them is said to be lethal.

GRAPE RUSH

Name: GRAPE RUSH

Mineta throws multiple Pop-Off balls in rapid succession to blanket an area or overwhelm a target.

He first uses this technique during the USJ villain attack, combining it with Izuku Midoriya’s moves to incapacitate several villains at once, and later formally names it during the final exams.

Grape Buckler

Name: Grape Buckler

Mineta sticks many Pop-Off balls onto a board or large object, creating a sticky shield.

This makes it dangerous for opponents to touch or attack the shield, as they will be immobilized upon contact.

Hop Mineta (Jump Mineta)

Name: Hop Mineta (often rendered as “Jump Mineta”)

Mineta spreads his Pop-Off balls across the ground, walls, or surrounding surfaces and uses them as trampolines.

He bounces rapidly around the battlefield, making him hard to track and enabling quick, agile movement despite his short legs.

In the Team-Up Missions spinoff, in tight spaces he becomes fast enough using this technique to even give the ultra-fast hero Keigo Takami (Hawks) trouble.

Grape Pinky Combo: Hop Mineta

Name: Grape Pinky Combo: Hop Mineta

This is a combination move with Mina Ashido.

Mina uses her acid-based move (Acid Layback) to launch Mineta, and he then rebounds off the Pop-Off balls he has scattered, ricocheting around like a human pinball while laying down more sticky traps.

Mineta Beads

Name: Mineta Beads

Mineta lines his Pop-Off balls in a chain-like row, creating something akin to a chained explosive mine.

Because he himself is immune to the adhesive, he can attach this bead-chain to an enemy, restrict their movement, and then run along the line of balls to quickly close the distance.

The name and concept have a “not safe for a kids’ magazine” origin, which the story humorously avoids explaining.

USJ Villain Attack

During the USJ incident, Mineta is warped to the Flood Zone alongside Izuku Midoriya and Tsuyu Asui by the villain Kurogiri (Anan Kurose).

Initially, he completely breaks down, screaming and crying as villains surround them.

However, after witnessing Izuku’s determination and Tsuyu’s composure, Mineta forces himself to act.

Using his Pop-Off balls together with Izuku’s strategy, they manage to immobilize a large number of water-based villains and escape.

This experience deeply affects Mineta’s idea of heroism.

He realizes that heroes are not cool by default; they are heroes because they choose to act bravely when it is terrifying.

U.A. Sports Festival

In the first event, the obstacle race, Mineta finishes 18th, just barely making it through.

In the second event, the cavalry battle, he teams up with Mezo Shoji and Tsuyu Asui, relying on Shoji’s size and defense.

Their strategy is clever but not enough to win, and they are eliminated.

Afterward Tsuyu bluntly tells him she only teamed with him because she thought the plan was good and criticizes him for losing their headband so easily.

Throughout the festival, Mineta constantly ogles the girls, exploits opportunities, and clings to stronger teammates for survival.

He does not reach the individual tournament, but his antics and attempts to strategize leave a strong comedic impression.

Workplace Experience

For his first Hero Agency experience, Mineta chooses Yu Takeyama (Mt. Lady), partly because she is a glamorous celebrity hero.

In practice, he is worked hard with grunt chores like cleaning and office tasks.

The experience is so harsh that afterward he briefly falls into a mild “woman distrust” phase, feeling crushed by the reality of pro work and Mt. Lady’s strictness.

It ironically matures him a little, even if he continues to be obsessed with women.

Final Exams vs. Nemuri Kayama

In the practical final exam, Mineta is paired with Hanta Sero and assigned to fight the Pro Hero Nemuri Kayama (Midnight).

They must either defeat her or escape through a designated gate.

Near the exit, Nemuri ambushes them and quickly puts Sero to sleep with her Quirk, Somnambulist, which emits sleep-inducing fragrance.

Mineta is left alone, torn between jealousy over Sero resting on her lap and his own fear of being put to sleep.

He initially appears frantic and hopeless, crying as he runs from Nemuri’s scent.

In reality, he is acting; he uses Sero’s tape to seal his own nose and mouth as a makeshift gas mask, then deliberately lures Nemuri deeper into the field by provoking her sadistic side.

Once she is in position, he traps her legs with his Pop-Off balls, immobilizing her long enough to hoist Sero onto his back and sprint through the exit gate.

In a rare moment of self-control, he resists the urge to grope Nemuri’s body in order to pass the exam.

Because he crosses the gate with the unconscious Sero, only Mineta is technically considered to have passed, and Sero must retake the test later.

Even so, this scene shows that Mineta can become “cool” when he chooses courage over desire.

First Movie: Two Heroes

In the first film, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, Mineta joins his classmates on I-Island during a villain incident.

The group must reach a security room on the top floor of a tall building.

Mineta is assigned to climb the outer wall using his Pop-Off balls.

He initially refuses, claiming it is impossible, but changes his mind after being told that “if you pull this off, a harem awaits you.”

Fueled by that vision, he scales the wall, helping the team advance.

When some of the accompanying girls praise his efforts, he proudly basks in their attention and redoubles his efforts.

Provisional Hero License Exam

In the first stage of the Provisional Hero License Exam, Class 1-A is scattered by the coordinated assault of Shiketsu High and other schools.

Mineta, like many of his classmates, is thrown into chaotic encounters.

Toward the end of the time limit, he locates Yuga Aoyama’s signal beam and regroups with the surviving members of Class 1-A.

Working together, they manage to pass the first stage.

In the second stage, which tests rescue skills, Mineta uses his Quirk to help secure victims and structure evacuations.

He successfully earns his provisional hero license, unlike some of his top-tier classmates.

U.A. School Festival

For the U.A. School Festival, Class 1-A plans a musical performance with live band and dance.

Mineta initially wants to be in the band, specifically playing guitar, imagining it as a path to popularity with girls.

Unfortunately, his tiny body makes playing the instrument effectively impossible, and he is assigned to the dance team instead.

He sulks and becomes frustrated, feeling his size is once again holding him back.

Mina Ashido, who leads the dance choreography, creates a “harem segment” in the performance where Mineta is surrounded by girls onstage.

This instantly revives his motivation, and he declares that “this time, my reward will not be breasts—I’ll hold out until the festival,” throwing himself into dance practice.

Joint Training: Class 1-A vs Class 1-B

In the joint training exercise between Class 1-A and Class 1-B, Mineta appears in the fifth match.

Teams are: from Class 1-A—Izuku Midoriya, Ochaco Uraraka, Mina Ashido, Minoru Mineta; from Class 1-B—Neito Monoma, Yui Kodai, Nirengeki Shoda, Reiko Yanagi, and transfer candidate Hitoshi Shinso.

At the start, the battle splits into two fronts, and Mineta fights alongside Ochaco and Mina against Yui Kodai, Nirengeki Shoda, and Reiko Yanagi.

The 1-B trio’s synergy and Quirks give them the upper hand, and the 1-A side struggles to keep up.

After Izuku’s Quirk goes out of control and is suppressed with Shinso’s help, the battle resumes.

Ochaco goes to cover Izuku, leaving Mina and Mineta to handle three opponents.

Mineta and Mina work together, combining Mina’s acid mobility with Mineta’s Pop-Off traps.

At one point, Mineta’s face ends up pressed against Mina’s chest as part of a “planned risk” in their tactic, which Mina later punishes him for anyway.

In the end, thanks to clever uses of their Quirks and mutual cover, Class 1-A wins the fifth match.

Afterward, Mina straps Mineta to a chair and forces him to watch a certain “educational” video as payback for the chest contact.

Winter Internships and Final War

During the winter internships, Mineta works with the hero team “Team Lurkers,” alongside Denki Kaminari, Hanta Sero, and Ibara Shiozaki.

This gives him real field experience in stealth and ambush-oriented hero work.

In the final stages of the war with All For One and Tomura Shigaraki (Tenko Shimura), Mineta participates in the operation to stop Gigantomachia, fighting alongside Mina, Eijiro Kirishima, Yui Kodai, Reiko Yanagi, Kojiro Bondo, and Hitoshi Shinso.

After Gigantomachia is set loose, Mineta and Shinso move toward All For One’s location on the battlefield.

When the restored All For One unleashes a devastating beam that devastates the frontline, heroes like Keigo Takami and Fumikage Tokoyami are in serious danger.

At a critical moment, Mineta throws his Pop-Off balls at All For One to distract him.

He shouts that stealing Tokoyami’s Quirk “Dark Shadow” would only make All For One look like an edgy, cringy teen.

He provocatively offers his own Pop Off instead, yelling that All For One should steal his “Pop Off” and get “the greatest hairstyle ever” instead of targeting Dark Shadow.

To All For One, this is little more than weak resistance, but it briefly catches his attention.

Combined with All For One’s lack of time, this moment helps prevent Dark Shadow from being stolen, ultimately preserving Tokoyami’s power.

In this way, the least physically imposing hero on the field manages to play a small but meaningful role in protecting a powerful ally’s Quirk.

Future Career

After graduating, Mineta becomes Yu Takeyama’s sidekick, participating in a major mass arrest operation and helping to capture numerous villains.

Riding that success, he sets out on his own and opens his own agency.

However, he gets into trouble when it is revealed he has been sending direct messages to female fans, earning widespread criticism.

Even so, eight years after the second final battle, he makes his debut at 108th place on the Hero Billboard Chart JP, a joking nod to both his height (108 cm) and the traditional “108 earthly desires.”

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku is one of Mineta’s closest male classmates.

They first truly bond during the USJ incident, where they are warped together to the Flood Zone and must combine their Quirks and courage to survive.

After seeing Izuku’s reckless bravery, Mineta begins to genuinely respect him.

He often talks with Izuku in class because their seats are close, and he goes to visit Izuku in the hospital after the Sports Festival, showing concern beneath his crude comments.

During the final exams, Mineta’s internal monologue reveals that he sees Izuku as someone “cool” in a way he wants to become.

He occasionally criticizes Izuku’s self-destructive habits, but it comes from worry rather than malice.

Tsuyu Asui

Tsuyu is both Mineta’s ally and his disciplinarian.

In the USJ Flood Zone, Mineta uses the chaos to grope her chest, only to be immediately dunked underwater in retaliation.

She becomes his “first victim” of sexual harassment in the series and thereafter often acts as his moral (and physical) enforcer.

When he says something inappropriate or goes too far, Tsuyu is quick to smack him down.

They team up again for the cavalry battle at the Sports Festival with Mezo Shoji.

After their loss, Tsuyu frankly tells him she only teamed with him because she thought his plan was good, and she chastises him for losing their headband.

In official character commentary, she labels him as “lacking in delicacy” and flags his behavior as something to be reported in a victims’ association style.

Even so, she recognizes his usefulness in crisis and does not reject him as a classmate.

Mezo Shoji

Shoji is the tallest boy in Class 1-A, while Mineta is the shortest, creating an amusing contrast whenever they interact.

Their first on-screen interaction is during the Quirk assessment, where Mineta randomly comments that “octopus-type things are erotic,” referring to Shoji’s appearance.

Later, Mineta learns about Shoji’s history of discrimination due to his mutation-type body and realizes how insensitive that comment was.

He tearfully apologizes, but Shoji, who knows Mineta had no malicious intent, tells him not to worry.

At the Sports Festival, Mineta initially asks Shoji to be his “horse” in the cavalry battle, and Shoji first declines in silence.

He changes his mind after hearing Mineta’s surprisingly solid defensive strategy and agrees to the plan.

Since then, Shoji has been shown grabbing Mineta when he is about to be blown away or placing him on his shoulder in crowded places so he can see.

This subtle, consistent support highlights a quiet, friendly dynamic between the two.

Denki Kaminari

Denki is Mineta’s biggest partner in crime.

Both are hopeless womanizers, and they often scheme together to glimpse girls in swimsuits or cheerleader outfits, which usually ends with the entire female half of the class punishing them.

During the Sports Festival, they conspire to trick the girls into wearing cheerleading costumes under false pretenses.

In the anime, they also collaborate in trying to spy on the girls at the pool.

Despite their shared degeneracy, Denki shows genuine concern when Mineta returns from his Mt. Lady internship emotionally bruised and wary of women.

They share a “bro” bond built on stupidity, shared punishments, and occasional real support.

Nemuri Kayama (Midnight)

Mineta idolizes Nemuri as one of his dream women, attracted both to her revealing hero costume and her dominatrix persona.

Ironically, she becomes the opponent in his final exam, a test he must pass by resisting exactly the temptation she embodies.

The exam forces him to choose between his primal urges and his heroic aspirations.

He temporarily wins that internal battle, using cunning and restraint to clear the test and prove that he can put heroics above lust in critical moments.

In the anime, his reaction to her fates later in the story is portrayed with heightened shock and despair, emphasizing how much she represented a fantasy figure to him.

In the gag spinoff My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Mineta’s perversion is dialed up to absurd extremes.

He is shown as not only lecherous but also masochistic, constantly suffering slapstick punishments and legal-level accusations for his behavior.

At the training camp, the others tell him someone should literally file charges against him.

After U.A. switches to a full dorm system, Mineta alone is made to sleep in a doghouse outside, a running joke about how untrusted he is.

In one scene, when he collapses in the dorm yard, Izuku and the others investigate and write on a whiteboard: “Every girl is a suspect” and “The only one who likes him is Kaminari,” implying everyone else would rather see him knocked out.

Even so, the manga occasionally lets him show a sliver of decency—such as offering his jacket to a cold Kyoka Jiro, even if it does not fit her.

Mineta is the shortest student in the Hero Course at U.A. High.

His height, 108 cm, mirrors the traditional Buddhist count of 108 earthly desires, which ties neatly into his oversexed personality and later Billboard ranking at 108th.

In-universe, some of his actions—like attempting to use his Quirk to peek into girls’ baths—would technically count as Quirk-related crime.

If taken seriously, he could be treated as a minor villain, even if the story frames these moments as slapstick comedy.

His dorm room is never shown in the main manga, but side material describes it as “horrifying,” suggesting walls covered in risqué posters and obsessive decor.

On Pixiv and similar fan sites, he has an unusually high ratio of adult-themed fan works for a male character, for reasons that are fairly self-explanatory.

In some overseas fandoms, a line he says to Izuku is misinterpreted, leading to jokes and fan theories that Mineta is gay.

Canonically, however, he is aggressively and loudly obsessed with women.

Male cast and staff often express surprising affection or solidarity with Mineta.

Izuku’s voice actor Daiki Yamashita lists Mineta as his favorite character, saying he would like to “live by pure instinct” like Mineta sometimes.

Eijiro Kirishima’s voice actor Masaki Mizunaka comments that Mineta is simply saying what many high school boys think but suppress.

Rikido Sato’s voice actor Tetsu Inada describes Mineta as “the most high school boy-ish” character.

The chief animation director Yoshihiko Umakoshi notes that Mineta is a valid “type” of high schooler: one who lives for his desires, rather than lofty ideals, contrasting with Izuku’s heroic straight path.

By contrast, Mineta’s voice actress Ryo Hirohashi admits she does not really understand “boys’ idea of perversion,” and was baffled by lines like “octopuses are erotic,” while male cast members reacted in embarrassed panic.

Many of Mineta’s most outrageous lines revolve around crude wordplay on his classmates’ names and bodies.

Examples include him shouting things like “Yaoyoroppai” when talking about Momo Yaoyorozu’s chest or yelling in frustration about his “little Mineta” being permanently in “banzai mode.”

These over-the-top quotes, plus his many failed schemes, cement Mineta as one of the most controversial but memorable characters in My Hero Academia.