Hinata Hyūga

is one of the main supporting characters of the series. She is a ninja; a Chunin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, and is a member of the Hyuga clan, as well as a member of Team Kurenai.

Background
Hinata is the eldest child of the Hyuga clan's leader, Hiashi Hyuga. As a child, Hinata was regularly seen being rather shy. As the eldest child, it was her birthright to become the next heir to the Hyuga clan's main house. She was regularly put through gruelling training by her father. One night, while still a child, she was kidnapped by a head ninja from the Land of Lightning. Her father killed the head ninja to save her, which ultimately resulted in the death of Hinata's uncle, Hizashi Hyuga.

Despite the sacrifice that went into saving her, Hinata's father eventually deemed her a lost cause that was weaker than her sister, Hanabi Hyuga. When she was assigned to Kurenai Yuhi, he told her that he was unconcerned that she might die on a mission, saying that he had no use for a weak heir, and began concentrating on Hanabi. Hiashi then left Hinata in Kurenai's care.

Personality
Hinata is generally kind-hearted, timid, soft-spoken, and polite, applying appropriate name suffixes to most people. Hinata can be a bit of a pacifist as well. She is a kind individual, who is unwilling to watch people get hurt in front of her, a trait that Neji considers a flaw, and dislikes competition and fighting. As a result of her father deeming her inferior, Hinata often lacks self-confidence, and despite training hard, often makes mistakes on missions. Hinata is able to understand people who share pain, and is one of the few people who knows how painful Naruto's childhood was. She generally thinks carefully before acting, allowing her to think more clearly in tough situations.

Hinata has a long-standing admiration for Naruto Uzumaki, making her one of the few female characters her age, if not the only, to not have a crush on Sasuke Uchiha. Despite being painfully obvious to almost every other character, Naruto has always been oblivious to her attention. Due to her timidness, he finds it awkward to be with her at times, particularly when she is unable to articulate what she wants to say, but still gets along well with her. As the series progresses, she goes to great lengths to win his attention and recognition, even going out of her way in order to help him out.

Hinata gets along well with her teammates. Kiba's actions toward her are often motivated by concern for her, as seen when he urged her to forfeit if she is matched against Neji. Shino often indicates that he believes in Hinata, and makes a point of telling it to others when they doubt or worry about her. Hinata is also the closest to Team 8's sensei, Kurenai, who is especially interested in Hinata's growth as a ninja and as a person. Kurenai noted that Hinata had improved in her battle with Neji. After Hinata was knocked down for the final time, Kurenai, despite appearing sad over how much Hinata had suffered, silently congratulated her student for not giving up. After this, and for the rest of Part I, she began strengthening herself by training with Neji, and encouraged Naruto at the same time, speaking her true feelings a bit more, whilst training hard.

In Part II, Hinata still stutters when she speaks and her feelings for Naruto have remained the same over the timeskip, as she is unable to bring herself to greet him when he returns, and passes out when he goes to greet her. However, she appears to be more confident and willing to take decisive action, unlike before. During Pain's invasion, Hinata finally revealed her true feelings, and confessed her love to Naruto. Though it is unknown what his reaction is, he was initially greatly shocked about her feelings. Naruto's response to her is yet to be revealed.

Appearance
Hinata is portrayed as having a very cute appearance. She is usually seen with a timid and shy expression. She has dark blue hair in a hime-cut style, with fairly long strands framing each side of her face, and fair skin. Like the rest of her clan, she possesses the infamous Byakugan eyes.

During Part I, she wore a pale hooded jacket that had a fire symbol on the upper right and left sleeves, and navy blue pants. After becoming a Genin, she wore her Konoha forehead protector around her neck. During Part II, Hinata let her hair grow to waist-length, and now wears a lavender jacket and navy pants.

Chunin Exam arc
When the Chunin Exams began, Hinata entered with her teammates in an attempt to change herself. During the first test, she was seated next to Naruto, and when Naruto was struggling to complete the written exam, she offered to let him cheat off her test. However, after seeing the penalty for cheating on a student just behind them, he refused so she wouldn't get in trouble, and because he was too proud to cheat. His inspiring speech at the end of the first test gave her the confidence to not give up, so Ibiki Morino passed everyone in the group who didn't refuse to take the tenth question.

In the second part of the exam, during the Forest of Death, she and her teammates quickly managed to get their scroll, becoming one of the first Genin teams to do so in that exam. When Kiba and Akamaru smelled a second target, they witnessed the Sand Siblings, Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari's confrontation with a team of Rain Genin. Gaara's brutal killings made them hide behind a bush, hoping not to be caught and killed.

In the preliminaries, Hinata had to face her much stronger cousin, Neji, in combat. She almost broke down and gave up after Neji berated her on being a failure who could never change. This made Naruto angry, and he cheered Hinata on, giving her the strength to fight her cousin. Despite being outmatched, and being rendered unable to send chakra into Neji's system, she continued to fight against Neji. He was surprised when she refused to give up and refused to stay down, becoming enraged when, for the first time, she was able to see through him, to see that he was fighting his destiny. He charged at her, but the Jonin in attendance restrained him before he could land a blow that would have killed her. When Hinata was taken away to the emergency room, Naruto dipped his fingers in her blood and vowed to defeat Neji.

A month later, Naruto, concerned that he would be unable to defeat Neji despite his vow, ran into Hinata. When he began to doubt himself, she told him that he never gave up, which was something she admired, and that she had become more confident after he cheered for her. This gave Naruto the strength and drive to go face Neji, and as he left, he told Hinata she was "a dark and timid girl" and said that he liked people like her. Hinata was speechless, and watched him go before leaving to watch the match with Kiba. Due to the injuries she received from Neji not being fully healed, Hinata passed out during the match, and did not see its ending.

Pre-Shippūden filler arcs
In the filler arcs, Hinata received more screentime than many other members of the Konoha 11. As a result of training since Tsunade's return to the village, she managed to create her own unique technique, Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, and managed to save Naruto and the rest of Team 8 by using it against hostile bug-users. In the filler episode, Naruto came across a naked Hinata's silhouette, training in a waterfall at night. Naruto, being oblivious, didn't realise that it was her, and talked to Kiba about how he saw a "beautiful girl" at the waterfall the next day, embarrassing her greatly. In the Bounty Hunter arc, she accompanied Naruto and Kiba to catch a thief, but because someone else caught him (albeit with their help), the mission was considered a failure.

As a result of these two failures, Hinata, Naruto, and Kiba were threatened with being returned to the academy if they did not succeed in finding hidden treasure. The group initially had difficulty working together, due to friction between Naruto and Kiba, and Hinata worrying about them. In this arc, Naruto and Kiba constantly chose different routes to the cave holding the hidden treasure. A group of ninja, who could perfectly transform into copies of others, ambushed and kidnapped them. Their kidnappers left them to die in a cave-in, but Hinata saved them with her new jutsu. She was unable to pursue the impostors into town because of an earlier leg injury, so Naruto and Kiba did so. Hinata later returned, and mistakenly attacked Naruto after he absent-mindedly put down the chest, which had distinguished him from the impostor.

In the Land of Vegetables arc, she managed to defeat a powerful ninja, Jiga, although she nearly sacrificed her life in doing so. In the Cursed Haunted Castle arc, she helped her teammates navigate the halls of a strange castle, which was actually a summoned chameleon in disguise, to save a daimyo's wife. Over this time, it was shown that she had a much better relationship with her father, who after her near-success in the Bikochu mission, encouraged her to do her best. Neji also got along well with her, sparring with her and caring about her well-being.

In Episode 158; ''Follow My Lead! The Great Survival Challenge'', the Academy Students were divided into teams of three and were assigned to a genin who would lead them on a mission against the other teams. Hinata was assigned to lead a team of three academy students; Nobori, Daichi and Matsuri. Her time with them was not covered much except that she was good at setting up camp and was doing better than Naruto.

When Naruto left to train with Jiraiya at the end of the series, she watched him leave, but was unable to bring herself to say goodbye to him. As he left, she vowed to become stronger, and to work as hard as he did.

Sai & Sasuke arc
In Part II, she had attained the rank of Chunin, and was still part of Team 8, renamed Team Kurenai. When Naruto greeted her, she passed out, overcome by the prospect of seeing him for the first time in two and a half years. When she came to, just as she began to focus, Naruto came to her and asked, very vaguely, to come with him on his mission, telling her to "shut up and come with him". Hinata misinterpreted the words and promptly passed out again. After this, Hinata asked Kiba if she seemed more grown-up, in the hopes of impressing Naruto. Kiba jokingly teased her, by saying she was still as silly as ever, and then told her that Naruto was behind her, surprising and upsetting her.

Three-Tails Arrival arc
In the anime, when Tsunade learnt of Orochimaru's current whereabouts, Tsunade called for Team 8 for their tracking and information-gathering skills. As they left (under Kakashi, who was filling in for Kurenai), Hinata wondered if Sasuke was there, and, after hearing that he was, asked if Naruto knew, too, but Shino told her that, if he did, Naruto would be unable to contain himself.

During the search, Hinata hoped to succeed in the mission, to make Naruto acknowledge her again. Her Byakugan then detected unusual chakra, and discovered it belonged to one of Orochimaru's test subjects for the Cursed Seal. Through the man's chakra trail, Hinata led her team to Orochimaru's hideout, only to barely escape from it after a trap was sprung, thus destroying the hideout. While searching for survivors, they found several men imprisoned in crystal, before they disintegrated. While Kakashi had Pakkun deliver one of Shino's crystal-encased bugs to Tsunade for analysis, the team continued looking for the enemy. Eventually, Hinata's Byakugan detected the enemies' chakra.

Immediately, Hinata and her team became at a disadvantage through use of a smokescreen. Hinata, however, was able to negate this by using her Byakugan. She ended up facing Nurari, a man with the ability to shift his body to the point of repositioning his organs to avoid damage, effectively making Hinata's Gentle Fist useless. In the end, she was saved by Shino and his insects. She was injured, but said she was still able to move. When the teams later met Guren, Hinata found out that her Byakugan was being disrupted by Guren's crystal barrier, as it produced too much reflective light. When she proved able to defeat one of Guren's clones, the real Guren appeared, and crystallized Hinata, rendering her completely immobile.

After Hinata was saved from Guren, everyone was shocked to see that she remained unharmed after the crystal shattered, unlike previous victims. Hinata revealed that she encased herself in a coat of chakra before the crystal encased her, allowing the team to realize that the crystal jutsu couldn't crystallize raw chakra. After being healed by Sakura, Hinata joined up with her team again in time to save them from the enemies' smokescreen ambush with her Byakugan. Unfortunately, the enemies escaped again, after the appearance of a huge tidal wave. After a powerful fog emerged, Hinata used her Byakugan to discover that a powerful chakra was responsible for creating it.

Later, Hinata and her team were joined by back-up from Konoha, holding orders directly from Tsunade to seal the newly emerged Three-Tails. While not having high expertise in ninjutsu, Hinata was placed on the sealing team because of her great chakra control due to her Gentle Fist training, with further assistance from her Byakugan. Unfortunately, the enemies were able to intervene and stop the sealing process, enabling the Three-Tails to break free of the barrier. Hinata was blown away by the ensuing tidal wave, but Lee and Tenten helped get her and the rest of the sealing team to safety.

After recovering, Hinata was put into a search party for a missing Naruto, to which Hinata showed much desire in succeeding at. After learning that Naruto was trapped inside the Three-Tails, Hinata was again put on a team assigned with the job of sealing the Three-Tails. Unfortunately, the second effort failed, when Yukimaru's power activated in his grief, breaking the sealing jutsu. Hinata and the other members of the sealing team were washed away in the tidal wave. She regrouped with the rest of the team, and used her Byakugan to notice that Yukimaru's chakra network had been damaged by overuse of his technique. She returned to Konoha with the rest of the team.

Hunt for Uchiha arc
Team 8 was recruited to help Team Kakashi find Itachi Uchiha. With her Byakugan, Hinata was able to see that one-third of Kabuto had been taken over by Orochimaru's remains. Later, when the squad regrouped, they came across Tobi, who appeared to be blocking their path to Sasuke. During the battle that followed, Hinata took the role of stationary scout, using her Byakugan to follow Tobi's chakra signal. When Tobi and Zetsu left for the location of Sasuke's fight with Itachi, Hinata was asked by Kakashi about what she saw; she said she saw black flames. Kakashi recognized the description as the Amaterasu flames, and he started leading the group to the hideout. Unfortunately, her team arrived too late, due to Zetsu and Tobi's inhumanly fast movement. Tobi had already taken Sasuke away, leaving no trace for the team to track.

Invasion of Pain arc
Hinata survived Pain's destruction of Konoha. She showed concern for an injured branch house member named Kō Hyuga, stating that his wounds needed to be healed, but Kō explained to her that he would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her. Once realizing that Naruto was fighting by himself, she attempted to run to his side, but was stopped by Kō, who warned her she'd only be a burden. Just as she seemingly accepted Ko's words, Naruto was pinned down by Pain. She decided to intervene, despite knowing she did not have the ability to defeat him. With her decision to fight made, she declared her love to Naruto, and proclaimed her willingness to die for him as she launched her assault. However, just as she had foreseen, Pain easily tossed her aside with the aid of Shinra Tensei, and stabbed her with one of his chakra blades. Angered over the apparent death of someone he cared about, Naruto slipped into his six-tailed transformation, while a barely conscious Hinata looked on. As the battle between Naruto and Pain raged on, Team Guy arrived at Hinata's side, and rushed her away from the battlefield and to Sakura's side. With her wounds healed, a thankful Hinata expressed relief toward Naruto's defeat of Pain. When Naruto came back to the village, she shed tears of joy, and was seen later on smiling as the villagers celebrated Naruto's victory.

Five Kage Summit arc
Hinata was present with the other members of the Konoha 12, minus Team 7. Since Sasuke was truly causing international events that could lead to war, Konoha 12 were deciding whether to kill him or not. However, during the meeting, Hinata didn't voice her concerns over the matter.

Shippūden the Movie 2: Bonds
After the attack on Konoha by the Sky Country, Naruto was assigned to escort a young girl, Amaru, (whom he had mistaken for a boy) and her sensei, Shinnō, back to their village, with Sakura and Hinata completing the three-man team. Upon arriving, they discovered it to have been attacked as well. A distraught Amaru recklessly ran into the village, accidentally setting off a trap hidden by the enemy. In the aftermath of the trap, Shinnō was tragically wounded in his successful attempt to save Amaru, and after a few weakened words, it was made apparent through Hinata's Byakugan that he was dying, and eventually appeared to succumb to his wounds.

Shortly afterward, the three split up to investigate the area. Hinata was kidnapped by Shinnō, who had merely faked his death, and was held prisoner, along with the rest of Amaru's villagers. Thanks to the aid of Amaru, they were able to escape the prison, and eventually the flying island itself, riding aboard a flying boat of sorts down to the ground below. Hinata then became happy as Amaru saved Naruto from falling to his death.

Byakugan
As a member of the Hyuga clan, Hinata possesses the Byakugan, which gives her a near 360° field of vision, albeit a blind spot around the back of her neck. She can focus her sight to drastically increase her range of vision in one direction, far outstripping Neji's visual range while doing so. In Part II, she was able to see 10km away, while Neji's known range is at least 800m. During the hunt for the Bikochu, she was able to effectively see every small insect in the area. Later, during her fight against Guren in her crystal labyrinth, Hinata's Byakugan was used again as there were many reflections, yet she was able to focus her Byakugan on her target, Guren, perfectly.

Gentle Fist Taijutsu
She also specializes in the Gentle Fist fighting style, which allows her to damage her opponents' chakra circulatory systems and inner organs directly, with even a slight tap. Despite all these abilities, her father, at least initially, believed her to be too weak to lead the clan. After her fight with Neji, Hinata took her quest to get stronger to new levels. She took part in training that consisted of manipulating water to sprout in an orb around her. This training manifested itself during the Bikochu filler arc, where she showed her self-made technique Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. With it, Hinata emits streams of chakra from her palms to create extremely sharp blades, which she can use to hit any target in her field of vision. Due to the speed at which these blades move, the amount of control she has over them, her natural flexibility, and her ability to manipulate their size, Hinata can use this technique to attack and defend simultaneously.

During the Three-Tails arrival filler arc, Hinata faced Guren's clone. Hinata revealed her new technique, which was due to her training during the timeskip. This technique is the minor version of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms called Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms. Hinata has also put her natural flexibility into a great performance. While battling Nurari, Hinata was capable of dodging almost all attacks, even though Nurari had an elastic body. She also demonstrates great accuracy with her attacks. When fighting Pain, she was able to force him back and was about to use a new attack, called the Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists, but was defeated before she was able to complete the attack.

Other Media

 * Hinata is a playable character in the Naruto: Clash of Ninja series, appearing in seven out of nine games. She is also playable in the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, appearing in all of the games.
 * Hinata has two versions in Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 and Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 4. One is normal Hinata and the other one is more powerful, which is named "Awakened Hinata." She was able to use Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms in the second version.
 * Hinata also made her first appearance in the Shinobi Retsuden series in Naruto Shippūden: Shinobi Retsuden 3.

Trivia

 * Hinata's name means "sunny place". It can be written with the exact same kanji as her last name,.
 * Despite Hinata's lack of panel time compared to some of the other Konoha 11, Hinata is popular in Naruto character popularity polls, frequently making it into the top 10 favorite characters. She was placed 10th in the first, 6th in the second and third, 12th in the fourth, 9th in the fifth, and 13th in the sixth. She finished 11th in the seventh and most recent, with 6,917 votes.
 * According to the Naruto databook:
 * Hinata's hobby is pressing flowers.
 * Hinata wishes to fight Neji and her father, Hiashi.
 * Hinata's favorite foods are zenzai and cinnamon rolls, while her least favorites are crabs and shrimp.
 * Hinata was promoted to Chunin at the age of fourteen.
 * Hinata has completed 33 official missions in total: 10 D-rank, 14 C-rank, 8 B-rank, 1 A-rank, 0 S-rank.
 * Hinata's registration number is 012612.
 * Hinata's favorite word is.

Quotes

 * (To Naruto) "When I watch you, I feel strong, like I can do anything - that even I am worth something."
 * (To Neji) "I will never go back on my word, because that's my ninja way too!"
 * (To Naruto) "I used to always cry and give up... I nearly went the wrong way... but you... you showed me the right way... I was always chasing you... wanting to overtake you... I just wanted to walk with you... I wanted to be with you... you changed me! Your smile saved me! So I’m not afraid to die protecting you!! Because I - love you..."