Mantis

"*Fear the bug!*"
―Mantis[src]
**Mester Mantis** is one of the supporting characters of The Awesome Universe's Kung Fu Panda franchise, the second generation. He is a member of the Furious Five as well as one of Master Daniel, Elida, Olivia and Shifu's students at the Jade Palace. He is a master of the Mantis Style of kung fu.

A warrior from an early age, Mantis had a fast-paced attitude that led him into trouble when he was captured by the Wool Stealing Crocodile Bandits. Forced to stay still for many days, he learned the patience needed to free himself. After learning this kung fu discipline, he eventually came to form the Furious Five with Tigress, Monkey, Viper, and Crane. Upon meeting Po, he made light of the panda being the Dragon Warrior, but was one of the first to relate to him. He now fights alongside Po as a friend and ally.

## Biography

When he was younger, Mantis felt that the world was too slow for him and he was too fast for the world. However, on a mission to retrieve wool coats back from a gang of crocodile bandits, he was captured due to his overconfidence and lack of listening skills when one of the villagers tried to warn him of the bandits' traps. Mantis was locked in a cage for days and forced to sit and wait for something to happen, and he entered a trance that allowed him to survey the world moving faster than he did. This allowed him to develop the patience needed to devise a plan of escape, playing dead to trick the crocodiles into opening his cage and defeating them.

### **In *Secrets of the Scroll***

Some time after this, Mantis apparently decided to try being a doctor, and soon found himself with his first patient: Master Shifu, who was suffering from food poisoning. Due to his inexperience, Mantis failed to improve Shifu's condition, but soon found himself called upon for an entirely different task: helping Shifu's student Tigress, ex-janitor Crane, ribbon dancer Viper, and would-be comedian Monkey face the menace of Boar. Despite Shifu's lack of confidence in the newly formed team, the future Furious Five were able to put their unique talents to work and overcome Boar, leading Shifu to accept them all as his students.

## Personality

>    Mantis may be the smallest of the Five, but he'd never admit it. The little guy has a textbook Napoleon complex: strong, fast and tiny, he possesses a mean temper and is ready to 'throw down' at the slightest insult.
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Like the rest of the Furious Five (except for Tigress) throughout the first film, he begins to warm up to Po. He was impressed by Po's wholeheartedness, even though Po knew Master Shifu was trying to get rid of him. Pragmatic and open-minded with a dry sense of humor, Mantis was actually the first of the Five to develop acceptance and liking of Po as a person, alongside the factor of Po's girth, declaring size did little to define a warrior and could actually be used as an advantage, no matter what style one practices. Mantis is a strong defender of this philosophy of his, noted to being a tad sensitive regarding his own small stature (demonstrated when he impulsively whacked two enemy wolves who called him "cute").

Mantis also appears to be the most outspoken of the Five, and seems to possess a wry sense of humor, such as when Po was so startled by the appearance of Master Shifu (whom he had been impersonating) that the two soup bowls he had been holding got stuck to his chest, making it look like a brassiere, to which Mantis was seen struggling not to laugh out loud, along with Monkey.

## Fighting style

>    Mantis' style is quick, calculating, responsive, and precise. Mantis' small size and incredible speed make him nearly invisible to opponents, an advantage that he uses to great effect. In addition, Mantis also possesses enormous strength, far more than his tiny size would imply. His powerful, high leaping rear legs and raptorial forelegs are used as defensive weapons. Mantis is known throughout China for his devastating "acupuncture attack," which can render a foe immobile.
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He is the smallest of the Five, but he is obviously the strongest proportional to his size. He can perform such feats as throwing Po and single-handedly holding up a severed rope bridge burdened by most of his comrades and Tai Lung, though with some effort. He is also shown to be an acupuncturist, as seen when he treated Po in the first film. This skill likely helps him know where other people's pressure points are located, allowing him to take down opponents.[10] A testament to his strength is him surviving repeated occasions where Po accidentally sat on or crushed him, with no harmful effects save an injured ego.

One of his famous moves is the Pinwheel Attack, which he used to help Po with place settings for the formal Winter Feast dinner.

## Relationships

### **Hao Ming**

Years ago, Mantis and Hao were engaged to be married, but Hao left Mantis at the altar for reasons unknown. In an attempt to get back at her, Mantis made up a lie that he was the Dragon Warrior. Suddenly wanting Mantis back, Hao dumped her current boyfriend and sent an urgent message for Mantis to come back to the village. Though he had initially planned to reject her, Mantis ended up falling for Hao all over again and they were soon engaged once more. When Hao eventually learned the truth, she immediately called off the wedding, though Mantis wasn't as upset this time round.

### **The Furious Five**

Mantis gets along very well with the other members of the Furious Five. He appears to be especially good friends with Monkey, often standing on the primate's shoulder.

### **Po**

At first, Mantis wasn't impressed when meeting Po after the panda was chosen as the Dragon Warrior, being particularly un-amused by a comment about his small size, but after seeing how tenacious the panda was in his training, Mantis warmed up to him. He even tried to treat Po with acupuncture after his first day of training, but was less than successful.

While Monkey is stated to be Po's best friend, in many ways Mantis is also shown to get along well with Po, hanging out with Po more often the most of the Furious Five and acting as an brother figure to Po to ensure he doesn't put himself in danger. Po in turn looks up to Mantis and enjoys his company, often hanging out with him and trying to help him. There have been a number of episodes that focused on or showed their close relationship, including "Sticky Situation", "Hometown Hero", "Kung fu Shoes", "Maltese Mantis", "Huge", and "Mouth Off".

In "Sticky Situation", Mantis was depressed about his girlfriend dumping him because she turned from a catepillar into a butterfly and Po tried to comfort him throughout the episode (as a subplot of the episode).

In "Hometown Hero", when Mantis confessed to Po about his telling everyone that he was the Dragon Warrior, Po decided to support his friend by helping him to maintain the facade while they were in his hometown. However, their friendship became rocky after Mantis spent far too much time with Hao Ming, so much that he neglected to duel Dosu and Sai So, leaving Po to repeatedly receive a beating. Po, eventually tired of being let down constantly, left town the day before Mantis and Hao were to get married. Po quickly returned after accidentally revealing to Dosu that Mantis had lied, and started getting beat up again while trying to stop him from revealing the truth. Mantis eventually chose to aid Po over marrying Hao, and pummeled the insect who was beating up his friend, later carrying the panda back to the Jade Palace (albeit with difficulty).

In "Kung Fu Shoes", he asked Mantis to watch him and make sure if he came close to achieving the status of Celestial Phoenix by performing the three needles test and when Mantis accidentally told him about an illegal market that sold black market which Po went to in order to get kung fu shoes that would allow him to become the celestial phoenix and get out of training, Mantis frequently advised him it was a bad idea.

In "Maltese Mantis", Po insisted that Mantis go to the fest since he wanted to share with Mantis the experience, where enthusiasts came to trade action figures, play games, and reenact famous battle scenes despite Mantis being reluctant due to the fact he heard it was filled with geeks.

In "Huge", when Mantis showed insecurity about his small size after losing to Lidong who is bigger than most, Po tried to comfort him to no success. After Mantis took a Gung-Tao potion to become bigger, Po supported him and said how awesome he was but when things got out of hand after Mantis took more of the potion to deal with Fung and Lidong, Po was the one to go get the antidote to fix Mantis.

In "Mouth Off" he supported Po in his desire to stop his talking habit to improve his kung fu skills.

A running gag in the series is Mantis being crushed under Po, which he is very indignant about considering their respective sizes.

### **Dosu**

After learning that Mantis was supposedly the Dragon Warrior, Hao Ming immediately dumped Dosu and seduced Mantis into taking her back. Dosu, being her current ex-boyfriend, had a strong hatred towards Mantis, and challenged him to a duel when he returned to his hometown. However, Mantis was too busy spending time with Hao to turn up at the place of the duel, even when Dosu rescheduled several times. Dosu eventually discovered Mantis's lie (having spotted Po doing kung fu) and realizing that he was the Dragon Warrior, and he attempted to stop Mantis and Hao's wedding. Despite Po's efforts, Dosu managed to reveal the truth, and Hao promptly dumped Mantis afterwards. After finally facing Dosu in combat and defeating him, Mantis decided to let his rival have Hao back, though Hao was not as happy to take back her ex.

### **Lidong**

In Huge, Lidong seemed to be Mantis' greatest enemy he has ever fought before since this episode is focused on Mantis as the main protagonist and Lidong as the main antagonist. The problem has to do with Mantis blaming his size for losing to Lidong. When Mantis wanted to drink Gong Tau Potion, which he did of course, this only enraged Lidong. At the end of the episode, Lidong was defeated by Mantis and shrunk down to a fraction of his original size. This makes Mantis Lidong's greatest enemy yet since he caused him to be shrunk.

## Clothing

Mantis is one of the Furious Five who does not wear any Clothing

## Trivia

### **General**

* The circular marking on Mantis' back contains the stylized rendering of a Chinese art character for "longevity" (traditional Chinese: 壽?; simplified Chinese: 寿; pinyin: shòu), which is commonly used in paper cuttings, wooden panels, silk prints, etc.
* Mantis' fighting ability of being so small that he seems invisible to larger opponents was inspired by the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Atom Ant.
* The number of acupuncture needles that Mantis placed in Po's back while talking to Tigress added up to 133.
* Mantis' battle weakness is his right blind side.
* The average lifespan of a praying mantis is roughly two years, whereas Mantis is much older.

### **In development**

* At one point in story development, Mantis was going to be a villain—though still a member of the Furious Five, he was actually a traitor conspiring with Tai Lung from the inside.
* Because of his small size, the filmmakers determined to have Mantis hover in certain shots to be noticeable, as an actual mantis has wings. The only problem with this was that Mantis was not originally modeled with wings!
* At one point in storyboarding for Kung Fu Panda 2, there was going to be a female mantis who appeared in a bar scene and flirted with Mantis. The character was cut during production, but was later made into a bonus deleted scene on the film's DVD