SDCC: ‘My Hero Academia’ Creator Reveals Inspiration Behind Mineta

My Hero Academia creator Kohei Horikoshi spilled the beans — or rather, the grapes — on Mineta at his San Diego Comi-Con panel on Saturday.

Horikoshi spoke to fans about hit hit manga, which has become an international sensation. He accepted questions from the audience and spoke candidly about everything, including the pint-sized comic relief hero, Mineta.

“How the heck did you come up with Mineta?” a fan asked bluntly.

“Just from grapes,” Horikoshi responded. “That’s it, yes.”

The simple concept of a walking, talking bunch of grapes blossomed into the incomparable Minoru Mineta, the most devious member of UA’s class 1A. For those that don’t follow, Mineta’s hair is comprised of four purple spheres on top of his head. His quirk allows him to pluck them off one at a time or all at once, and stick them to just about anything except for himself.

Mineta can use the adhesive balls from his head to climb walls, retrieve objects and distract enemies. If he overuses the quirk, he will suffer from severe bleeding, but in season 3 he began training to increase his own endurance.

Throughout the series, Mineta has walked the fine line between being a cartoonish parody of a character and jumping over into a full-blown serious hero. He has somehow managed to have moments of sincerity that don’t undercut his position as the class-clown with both his peers and the audience.

Still, for the most part Mineta brings levity to the melodramatic world of My Hero Academia. He embodies the lusty archetype so prevalent in manga and anime — an archetype that some feel is outdated.

On social media, many fans are dismissive of Mineta, wishing his screen time could be dedicated to more interesting plots.

“I ship Mineta with death,” one Twitter user joked this week, hope they end up together.”

Still, as the story goes on Mineta has not dropped out of the spotlight at all, and it is clear that he is here to stay no matter what the fans think. This week, many of the students in class 1A unveiled their new “ultimate moves” as the provisional hero licensing tests began.

Mineta put on an uncharacteristically aggressive display when he whipped a string of his grape-like balls around in a wide arc, deflecting the balls that other students threw at them. Hopefully it will be enough to save him and his classmates from being eliminated, as the other schools are focusing all their attention on the young heroes.