MonoShin

MonoShin is the slash ship between Neito Monoma and Hitoshi Shinso from the My Hero Academia fandom.

Canon
Because Monoma is in the Department of Heroes while Shinso is in the General Department, the two haven't interacted too often. Despite this, Monoma and Shinso are quite similar, as both of them are victims of the hero society and have quirks that society as a whole considers as "unheroic," and instead of aiding them; their quirks been a cause of their troubles. This is why Monoma understands perfectly what Shinso went through, what he feels like and what type of hero he’ll become as we can see during their relating to each other.

They both also share a disdain for “blessed people” (people who perfectly fit the hero society) because while both of them have shown to be talented their quirks don’t fit the hero society. Monoma believes that blessed people will destroy the world while Shinso believes that blessed people can’t understand what he went through.

Monoma is a mocking, loud and sarcastic person while Shinso is the complete opposite of him, calm, stoic and direct. But, in serious and academic situations, both are very meticulous with impressive tactical and analytical skills. Their fighting styles match as they both need the presence of others in order to activate their quirks, Monoma must touch someone in order to copy a quirk, and Shinso needs his opponent to respond when he speaks to them in order to brainwash them. Monoma and Shinso stands out the most in their respective group. Monoma is described as the center figure of class B due to his smarts and charisma and Shinso is described as the star of the general course.

Their first appearances were at the Sports Festival where they antagonized Class 1-A at different stages of the festival. Monoma faced Team Bakugo in the cavalry battle where he taunts Katsuki by talking about how he's is famous for being the victim of the Sludge Villain incident. In the Fighting Tournament, Shinso has to face Izuku and when their match begins, he insults Mashirao, calling him an idiot for throwing away his chance to be in the finals, just because his pride would not allow him to compete because he felt like he did not really earn it. In their matches they are both defeated by their respective opponents and once the festival concludes, Shinso joins Class 1-B in watching the award ceremony.

One day after the Provisional Hero License Exam ends, Class 1-A is seen heading to the sports ground until the class encounters Monoma, who mocks how two students in 1-A failed the exam, whereas everyone in Class 1-B passed. After Monoma takes advantage of Pony's inarticulate Japanese to taunt Class 1-A, Shinso appears asking for the bickering classes to move out of his class' way. Monoma and Shinso are the members of their classes most focused on the light novel that recounts the events of the School Festival. Monoma starred in the play his class put on for the festival, and Shinso assists his class in setting up their Haunted House exhibit.

Monoma and Shinso first meet in the joint training arc, a combat training exercise that pits the students Class 1-A against Class 1-B in a series of five team matches. Before the teams begin to form, Vlad King and Eraser Head reveal Shinso as a special guest participating in the exercise who hopes to join the Department of Heroes. When asked to introduce himself, Shinso refers to the other students as obstacles he must overcome and that he has no intention of making friends here in his journey to becoming a hero. As everyone applauds after Shinso finishes his presentation, Monoma looks at him excitedly commenting: "I like this one."

Monoma has shown being extremely excited to fight alongside Shinso several times throughout the training. When Shinso is placed in his team, Monoma immediately welcomes Shinso with open arms, happily willing to cooperate with the hero-in-training in hopes of crushing Class 1-A. After the first match ends and class B loses, Monoma instead of being angry at the defeat, is glad to see Shinso on the battlefield and calling his performance in the first match "marvelous", making comments as: “looking forward to it!” (to fight with Shinso) or “You showed me something good. I’m looking forward to fight with him” talking to his classmates about Shinso. After this, Monoma approaches Shinso to strategize against Class A while his teammates are annoyed by his behavior.

Throughout the Joint Training, the two of them spent a good deal of time together exchanging comments about their classmates performances. This is the case during match 3 when Shinso analyses to Monoma the situation of the match and Monoma replies that he is right. When it is their team's turn to battle against Team 5-A, Midoriya is the main threat and Shinso suggests to Monoma that they should work together to use his brainwashing to stop Midoriya and defeat the opposing team. However, Monoma has doubts about copying Deku's quirk due to the risks involved in using it. By coming with their strategy, Monoma counts on Shinso when it comes to take Midoriya down.

Before their match begins, Monoma and Shinso talk as they walk towards their area. In this conversation Monoma reveals to Shinso that he grew up derided for wanting to be a hero with his quirk, that upon meeting him he felt a sense of camaraderie with him and realizing that Shinso has also gone through problems because of his quirk in the past, telling Shinso that he really like him and that the two are similar. Shinso tells Monoma that he's not happy with his current situation, while the latter points out that's how reality works. Monoma asks Shinso how he managed to brainwash Midoriya. Shinso responds that he trash-talked one of his classmates since he didn't really know Midoriya's character at first. Monoma quickly comprehends that to become a hero, they'll have to resort to "un-hero-like conduct" to catch up with those who were gifted with actual powers of their own.

During the fight, Midoriya's Blackwhip goes berserk and Monoma's first reaction after being forced to dodge the whips is to immediately call out to Shinso in order to make sure that the latter is unharmed. Thanks to the cooperation between Ochaco and Shinso, Izuku was able to be stopped and the mysterious power controlled. The match continues and when Monoma is caught by Uraraka, Shinso calls out to him while thinking, "I need to save him."

It's shown that the two do care for one another, as they both have apologetic inner monologues, disappointed that they weren't able to help each other out more. Monoma thinks an apology to Shinso about getting himself caught and Shinso apologizes in his mind to Monoma for retreating instead of saving him.

Monoma helps out Shinso by using Nirengeki Shoda's Twin Impact Quirk on Midoriya before Midoriya could attack Shinso. To this, Shinso praises Monoma, thinking "Well done, Monoma!". After Monoma gets caught, Shinso starts to remember the discussion he had with Monoma about taking Izuku down and thinks, “You went through all that hard work to create an opening. I won’t let this end here”, although their team eventually loses against the one from class A.

While they don't interact again after the Joint Training ends, Monoma is happy that Shinso is going to join the Department of Heroes starting the second year and is excited at the probability of Shinso becoming his classmate. In the My Hero Academia Team Up Mission 12, we learn that Monoma made a room in class B’s dorm in case Shinso joins his class. With the collaboration of class B he made him a soundproofed room to help him concentrate and filled the room with psychological books so he can train.

Quotes
"I like this one."

- Monoma meeting Shinso.

"In order to become heroes, we have no choice but to resort to un-hero-like conduct. Otherwise, we'll never match up to those powers that can do "anything and everything". We don't resemble those figures we aspired to be in the slightest."

- Monoma talking to Shinso.

Fanon
Before Monoma and Shinso had even canonically interacted in the story, fans began shipping them together for their mutual dislike towards Class 1-A and their "villainous"-style quirks. In time, the ship started gaining more attention following the release of the Joint Training Arc chapters. Their shippers are extremely invested in the ship and don’t hesitate to call them soulmates because of their complementary personalities and looks. Shippers often portray Monoma as the one who has fallen for and begins to pursue Shinso, while Shinso accepts and eventually appreciates Monoma's over-the-top behavior.However some shippers prefer to explore Monoma’s calmer side and consequently portray their pairing in way different manners. Most of MonoShin shippers are a KiriBaku shippers, "MonoShin is just a different taste of KiriBaku" they say. This is one of the "Introverted dark haired x Extroverted light haired" couple tropes in My Hero Academia, such as MiriTama, EraserMic, MomoJirou, KuroMori, TokoMina, KiriBaku (Except for Katsuki's hair is light coloured), etc.

Monoma and Shinso don't have too many appearances in merch or in various games, but when they do, they are often together. They also often indirectly or directly parallel Bakudeku in official content In an interview April 2021, Horikoshi revealed that "Shinso and Monoma may do some pretty big stuff" in the final act of the series. This leads some fans to believe that the pair will team up or work together again in the future. In an interview for the promotion of My Hero Academia Season 5, Hatano (Shinso’s VA) was asked which character he would like to cooperate with if he was in My Hero Academia. He looked at this question from Shinso’s perspective and chose Monoma because of his great ability to strategize and his great intellect which would help Shinso.

Hatano also said he liked the dynamic between Monoma and Shinso as Monoma was more and more excited during the Joint Training arc but Shinso still stayed calm and unconcerned despite this Amasaki (Monoma’s VA) also said that he was happy to see Monoma and Shinsou fight together. He found really significant how Monoma opened up to Shinso about his past and thinks that he talked to him because he felt close to his situation. He then added that it’s a conversation that wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t fight together so he found this really precious.

Amasaki also believes that Monoma felt sympathy for Shinso because they share the same kind of quirk that is not easy to deal with. Yamashita (Deku’s VA) thinks that we will see more qualities for both Monoma and Shinso in the future, so the fanbase will love them even more. Amasaki/Hatano and Yamashita/Okamoto (Bakugo’s VA) made an appearance at the All Might Nippon radio event and incarnated their respective characters. There was an "in character" for both duos in which Shinso used his quirk on Monoma. This is interesting as people were usually scared of Shinso’s quirk and he therefore got repeated many times to not use his quirk on them. Yet he does seem to feel comfortable enough with Monoma to actually do it.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Monoma & Shinsou tag on AO3
 * Monoma & Shinsou tag on AO3

TUMBLR

TWITTER
 * ShinMono posts on Twitter
 * ShinMono posts on Twitter

INSTAGRAM
 * MonoShin tag on Instagram
 * ShinMono tag on Instagram
 * Monoma x Shinsou tag on Instagram

DEVIANTART

PIXIV

Trivia

 * In the BNHA Ultra Analysis Character Book, Shinso makes a comment on Monoma's Relationship chart. Monoma says, "I need someone else in order to use my quirk." to which Shinso replies, "I have a similar quirk as you too."
 * When apologizing to Shinso after getting caught Monoma used ごめんね (gomen ne) instead of  ごめん (gomen) which is a more affectionate way of saying sorry. You would usually use it to apologize to someone you like a lot or when you feel really guilty about something.