Neito Monoma

Neito Monoma, also known as Phantom Thief, is a supporting character in the My Hero Academia franchise. He is a student of Class 1-B at U.A. High School and is extremely dedicated to it. 
He is shown to be generally arrogant and has a huge rivalry towards Class 1-A and finds many ways to topple Class 1-A and making his own class come off as superior at any opportunity because of his superiority complex, often insulting them before being knocked out by one of his classmates, mostly by Itsuka Kendo.
He is voiced by in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Austin Tindle in the English version.
==Appearance==
Neito Monoma is a young man of average height with slick blond hair, which gets shorter the further down his head, styled so that it's parted to the right, his bangs left hanging over his right eye. His irises are a periwinkle blue, his pupils white, and his eyes are shaped so that they're slanting downwards towards the far sides of his face, usually left half-closed; this, along with his signature smirk and head tilt, gives him a rather contemptuous look. There were girls admit in the light novels that Neito has a handsome face.
His hero costume is a black, double-breasted tuxedo with two long tails almost reaching to the back of his ankles. Three clocks hang on one of two belts around his waist, presumably to help him keep track of his Quirk's time limit, and he leaves his shirt collar upturned, a blue and black dotted tie done up around his neck. A left breast pocket can be found on his tuxedo, a small blue handkerchief sticking out. Neito's tailcoat and pants are plain black, except for the cuffs of his sleeves and the inner-facing sides of his tails, and his shoes are white with a simple design.
==Personality==
Whilst present, Neito can prove to be sarcastic, overly loud, extremely vocal, arrogant, competitive and outright brash with mocking. taunting, insulting, heckling, trash-talking, ridiculing, belittling and threatening all of the students of Class 1-A. Out of everyone in his classroom, he seems to be the one most obsessed and dedicated with toppling 1-A's popularity and baiting them for it to rile them up and put them down while putting lots of attention on Class 1-B, desperately not wanting Class 1-B to rain in the shadows. 
Him being antagonistic comes from the fact that he is so shameless about his fixation for class superiority and popularity, that he will take any opportunity to proudly mock, disrespect, poke fun and belittle Class 1-A in a very condescending, supercilious, spiteful, judgmental, provocative and passive-aggressive fashion, all with a pompous attitude and sometimes throwing fits of shrill cackling laughter to relish in their inconvenience, which goes to the point that it's quite monomaniacal and shows concerning signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and a whole shade of Idée fixe to his fixation he shows out of envy (as his last name implies), and his plans to make Class 1-A look bad out of spite and his desperate attempts to make Class 1-B become more popular and superior than Class 1-A always backfires on his end, does nothing significant in general and oftentimes, he repeatedly gets tons of karma at the end for acting unstable, being a spoilsport and a petty bully towards a whole class of superheroes in training, where his tirades and meltdowns are typically stopped by Itsuka Kendo frequently karate chopping him on the neck to discipline and silence him while she also apologizing to Class 1-A on his behalf, Awase whacking him with a baseball bat to shut him up when he was going crazy and cackling at the idea of Class 1-A acting like crybabies over Class 1-B putting on a better performance than theirs, or Aizawa using his Erasure Quirk to strangle him. 
As a result, Monoma is often hated by Class 1-A, and there were a fair amount of times where even Class 1-B themselves find him to be annoying or obnoxious for his overwhelming egotism and his overdramatic way of bringing attention to Class 1-B in itself such as Vlad King, his own teacher (and typically he is otherwise seen as unhinged and completely nuts by some people in 1-A such as Kirishima and Kaminari, who alongside Sero have shown to be equally creeped out and unsettled by Monoma's shouting and deranged cackling laughter).
Monoma appears to hold something akin to a superiority complex, despite putting on a smug, cocky, snobbish and seemingly narcissistic front, he does have insecurities since he feels threatened by Class 1-A's strength and skills, with his provoking also being an unsubtle attempt to cheer his own fellow classmates up while he is also envious and sometimes power-hungry of Class 1-A themselves. His loudmouthed behavior, smugness and overconfident attitude serves to mask his true feelings, of which he has had difficulty justifying his own desire to become a hero due to his Quirk being deemed useless in itself, and with Monoma 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. 
He also happens to be deceitful sometimes since he also replies to random comments on social media saying: "Oh so you don't have time to message me back, but you can comment on this picture? we're through xx Come get your stuff." It's not helping that he also admits that he wants to be "manipulative" since he believes he is not powerful on his own as an excuse for not being able to do things like a typical hero and feels like he has to resort to playing the role of a trickster and concoct underhanded tactics and having a need to lie and deceive certain people as a habit for his own gain as a student.
Nonetheless, Monoma still does prove to be quite smart, strategic and even competent at times, as shown with his performance in the Cavalry Battle, with him provoking Katsuki Bakugo in several ways such as by copying his and Eijiro Kirishima's Quirks to toy with them when they least expect it and surprise them with said imitations during the battle (which goes to the point where he got Bakugo and his team stuck in place by Kojiro Bondo's glue stick power while stealing their points, which got the Bakugo switched targets from Midoriya's team to his before going back to Midoryia's). In addition, he was also able to see and understand Uraraka’s strategy of using the stadium debris against Bakugo while she kept the latter focused on her before telling her how his costume is a disguise to make people think he can copy three Quirks when he can copy four in fact (for about 5 minutes in fact), he took Shinso's Quirk during the Joint Training Arc in an attempt to provoke Midoriya into revealing the location of his allies.
When Vlad King told him that he would play a key role in the Pro Heroes' plan, and reassured him that he was always a star, Monoma confidently assisted the Pro Heroes by teleporting them into the battle via copying Kurogiri's Warp Gate, though he boasted about his role as "The Man Behind The Curtain" out of glee. As well as putting up a fight against Shigaraki (as well as foiling Shigaraki's plan without Monoma even knowing that would happen).
Despite all this, Monoma has proven to be able to put his extremely scornful attitude aside if it means assisting others or helping his classmates. This is shown when he attempted to copy Eri's Quirk, only to fail and apologies to Aizawa, Mirio and Midoriya, saying that he wishes he could have done more. However, he still proved to be helpful when he puts his mind to it despite his many limits and shortcomings, like when during the Paranormal Liberation War he copied the Erasure Quirk and used it to watch over Shigaraki before erasing them (thus saving Mirko and the big 3 from being dead)
== Quotes ==
==Powers and abilities==
===Quirk===
Monoma's Quirk, Copy, allows him to mimic another user's Quirk by making physical contact with them. He can maintain any copied power for ten minutes before losing it, and is able to copy up to four Quirks at a time, which can be seen as a psychic power in the vague sense of psychoscopy. Monoma can freely use any Quirk he has copied but is unable to activate more than one at a time.
Monoma is unable to copy Accumulation-type Quirks that required a stored power, as he cannot replicate said power. As shown when he failed to use Izuku Midoriya's One For All and Eri's Rewind. Furthermore, he is limited to his own physical body and cannot handle Quirks that strain the user's body.
He even replicated Warp Gate, which he uses to teleport the heroes to AFO and his forces for an ambush before splitting up the villains and sending them away from each other.
==Gallery==
Neito Monoma Hero Costume (Anime).png
Class 1-B Hero Costumes (Anime).png|Class 1-B Hero Costumes when they arrive at Ground Gamma during the Joint Training Arc.
Round 5 Teams.png|Round 5 Teams.
Neito The Man Behind The Curtain.png|Neito summoning the Pro Heroes in the manga.
Neito at R-Games.png|Neito mocking Denki and Minoru during the recreational games.
Neitoinstudentuniform.png
Neitosmockingtone.png
NeitoTauntingClass1A.png|Neito taunting Class 1-A in the U.A. Sports Festival Arc.
Neitobeingsnobbish.png|Neito in the Final Exams Arc.
Neitosmugtaunt.png|Neito in the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc.
Neitogoingcrazy.png|Neito providing a maniacal laugh in the U.A. School Festival Arc.
== Etymology ==
His surname contains the kanji for "object" (物 mono) and "gap" (間 ma), and his first name contains "repose, serenity, preferable" (寧 nei) and "person" (人 to). When written together, the kanji in his last name means "among things" (物間 monoma).
His surname may also be a play on the word "monomaniac," meaning "exaggerated or obsessive enthusiasm for or preoccupation with one thing," which explains his recurring obsession for toppling Class 1-A.
His name also comes from the word "mimicry, imitation" (物真似 monomane), which references his Quirk.
==Trivia==
*According to Horikoshi, Monoma is based off a real person, that being named Dane DeHaan, specifically because of his performance as Harry Osborn in the film The Amazing Spider-Man 2, as told in Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #12 2022.
*Neito likes French cuisine and Franco-Belgian comics.
*Neito shares the same birthday as Yo Shindo.
*Neito seems to share similar qualities to Katsuki Bakugo, both being blond-haired, loud, arrogant, wanting to prove themselves to be the best, have moments of being calculating, love to pick on the weaknesses of other people and both exhibit anti-heroic/antagonistic qualities that make them seem more villainous than heroic. But Neito appears to be the personification for what it'll look like if Katsuki didn't mature and grow from his conflicts like getting captured by the Sludge villain, and where Katsuki has matured and outshines Neito in every sense of the word with being a student, Neito is a literal walking shadow to Katsuki.
** It doesn't help that Neito acted similar to Katsuki when the latter was introduced at the beginning of the series as being smug and overconfident before Katsuki learns how looking down on people wouldn't allow himself to recognize his own weaknesses. This allowed him to work with Class 1-A and work with Deku after initially getting hostile with Deku.
** Neito knows he won't be the best and lives in the sidelines of being a "copy", whereas Katsuki develops into a more mature person.
** They both had a freakout over another person's accomplishments. While Katsuki maturing into a stronger person had caught Neito by surprise to the point of finding it impossible and freaking out about it, is quite similar to how Katsuki witnessed Deku improving with the One For All quirk and couldn't believe it was possible.
*In the English dub provided by Austin Tindle; Neito's cackling maniacal laughter he provided in the U.A. School Festival Arc, bears an uncanny resemblance to Edwin Neal's English dub for Dr. Ivo Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, especially the moment where Robotnik revels in Sonic being defeated by Hyper Metal Sonic, with both characters sharing similar cackling laughter from two different English anime voice dubs no less!
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