Warning: contains spoilers for My Hero Academia chapter 321!
Deku's efforts to escape his classmates continue in My Hero Academia chapter 321, as Class 1-A attempt to persuade the young hero to accept their help in defeating All For One, but one character in particular - Minoru Mineta - has fans talking as his comments appear to express a romantic interest in his friend and ally Izuku Midoriya.
Mineta has been a controversial character from the start of the series; as a comic relief character, he's rarely involved in serious sequences, and much of his "comedic" value comes from sexually harassing the female students in his class. While the perverted character archetype is still relatively common in manga, fans have steadily grown more disapproving of treating such behavior as in and of itself humorous, especially when their activities provide a convenient reason for the creators to include sexualized scenes that are otherwise very out of place. Since Mineta has had a thankfully small role in the series, the character - rather than My Hero Academia - has been the brunt of reader criticism.
In recent chapters of the manga, Deku (Izuku Midoriya) has been operating alone, even turning away from All Might's support. In response, the students of Class 1-A decide they've had enough and want their friend back, so they set out to convince him - by force, if necessary. Each character in the class has been offered a chance to appeal to Deku, leading to some touching moments, even if they've so far been unsuccessful. But Mineta's appeal in particular has caught fan attention because it seems to indicate that Midoriya is in love with Deku, reading:
I never thought it was your power that made you awesome! I fell for you when you were scared and sweating buckets, and quaking in your boots! Back when we found a path forward together, the way you were back then!
The use of "I fell for you" certainly sounds like a romantic declaration in English, but translation between Japanese and English can be tricky. In Japanese, the original text on Mineta's page reads, "オイラが惚れたおめあは 冷や汗ダラダラで！プルプル震えて！一緒に道を切り拓いた--- あん時のおまえだ." The important part is right at the beginning, 惚れた, or "horeta," which means "fell in love with." Due to My Hero Academia's target audience being younger, the series employs furigana - smaller text that explains the particular reading of a kanji, which eliminates a lot of potential ambiguity. Still, while the original Japanese clearly indicates that the word in question is indeed "love," it's not necessarily guaranteed to mean a romantic love in this context, although it certainly could. The usage could be akin to saying "that person won my heart with their performance," which is more ambiguous about romantic intent than in the official translation.
Given many fans' dislike of Minoru Mineta, a more romantic reading brings up thorny issues of representation, especially in the context of Mineta's prior harassment of women. While many would welcome more LGBTQIA+ representation in My Hero Academia, Mineta's perverted archetype and the disdain in which he's already held by many fans severely complicate the potential benefits. Fans will undoubtedly be watching closely for anything that can clarify Mineta's declaration to Deku as My Hero Academia continues, but what follows will likely depend on creator Kohei Horikoshi's original intent, and it's entirely possible the manga will never settle the matter one way or the other.