Hinata Hyūga

is a member of the Hyuga Clan. She is on Team 8 with Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame, under the leadership of Kurenai Yuhi.

Background
As a child, on her third birthday, she met her cousin, Neji; while she was somewhat shy in his presence, he told his father Hizashi that he found her nice. Not long afterward, the Land of Lightning's head ninja tried to abduct her, but her father Hiashi killed him to save her. The Land of Lightning demanded compensation for this, and Hizashi agreed to die in Hiashi's place.

At the start of the story, she is a shy girl, who is the heiress of the Hyuga Clan. She is one of the rare female characters who didn't have a crush on Sasuke Uchiha, but instead focused her attention on the totally oblivious Naruto.

Her father saw her as weaker than her sister, Hanabi Hyuga, and when she was assigned to Kurenai Yuhi, told her that he was unconcerned that she might die on a mission, saying that her sister was more valuable than she was. Although she trained harder than her teammates, she gave up and thought herself as useless, leading to many failures on missions.

Personality
Hinata is generally soft-spoken and polite, applying appropriate name suffixes to most people. She is kind, being unwilling to watch people get hurt in front of her, a trait that Neji considers a flaw. 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, a trait her teammates often tease her for. Despite being painfully obvious to almost every other character, Naruto has always been oblivious to her attention, and due to her timidness, he finds it hard to be with her at times, but still claims that he can be around Hinata. Hinata gets along well with her teammates. Kiba's actions toward her are often motivated by concern for her, as seen when he urges 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 Yuhi, who is especially invested 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 last time, Kurenai, despite appearing sad over how much Hinata suffered, silently congratulated her student for not giving up. After this and for the rest of Part I, she begins strengthening herself by training with Neji, and encourages Naruto at the same time, speaking her true feelings a bit more and training harder than usual. In Part II, she has advanced to the rank of Chunin, indicating her successful training. She also stutters less when she speaks, showing how she is finally gaining confidence in herself. Despite this, her feelings for Naruto have remained the same over the timeskip, and she is unable to bring herself to greet him when he returns, and passes out after nine seconds when he goes to greet her. Despite this, her perseverance has caused Naruto to see a true side of her, and he now views her in a higher regard.

Chunin Exams
When the Chunin Exams came, she entered with her teammates in an attempt to change herself. During the first test, 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 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, Shino Aburame, and Kiba Inuzuka, 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 'fight' (or kill) a Rain Genin team. The slaughter that Gaara created made them hide behind a bush, hoping not to be caught and killed.

Then in the preliminaries, she witnessed the battle between her teammate Kiba and her crush Naruto, and was divided on who to cheer. Ultimately, she cheered Naruto on and gave Naruto some of her homemade healing cream to treat his wounds after the fight, while at the same time giving some to her teammate Kiba, who warned her to forfeit if she was matched against Gaara or Neji.

In the eighth round, she had to face her much stronger cousin, Neji Hyuga, 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, refused to stay down, and became 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 Kurenai Yuhi, Kakashi Hatake, Hayate Gekko, and Neji's sensei, Might Guy 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.

Chunin Exam Finals
In the first round of the finals, Naruto was set to fight against Neji. He was rattled and nervous the day of the fight, and began to doubt himself. He went to one of his old training areas, and 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, timid girl..., but you know, I think I like people like you." She was speechless and watched him go before leaving to watch the match with Kiba.

After that, she managed to watch half way through Naruto's battle with her cousin. Shortly after Naruto managed to get up after nearly being defeated, she began coughing up blood and had to be excused. Naruto's anger over Neji's cruel treatment of her and other people motivated him to continue, and he ultimately defeated Neji and helped to change his worldview.

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 made-up 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 training in a waterfall at night. Naruto, being oblivious, didn't realize 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. A group of ninjas 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 Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-four Palms jutsu. She was unable to pursue the impostors into town becuase 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. This is one of her greater achievements. 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.

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 work as hard as he did.

Part II
In Part II, she had attained the rank of Chunin and was still part of Team 8, renamed Team Kurenai. The most noticeable change in her appearance is that she let her hair grow out to waist length. 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 interpreted the words incorrectly, and promptly passed out again. After this, Hinata asked Kiba if she seemed more grown up in hopes of impressing Naruto. Kiba jokingly teased her by saying she was still as silly as ever, and then that told her that Naruto was behind her, surprising and upsetting her.

Hunt for Uchiha
After Team 10 dealt with Hidan and Kakuzu, Kakashi assembled Team Kurenai to join Team Yamato, to form the 8-Man Squad. Hinata, much to her joy, was teamed up with Naruto and Yamato to find Itachi Uchiha. With her Byakugan, she 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 it 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 superhumanly fast movement. Tobi had already taken Sasuke away, leaving no trace for the team to track.

Pain's Invasion
After Pain began his invasion, she along with Kiba and Shino saw the devastation.

Abilities
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. During the Chunin Exams, she displays the ability to focus the Byakugan's sight, increasing the distance that her eyes can see. 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 used training that consisted of manipulating water to sprout in an orb around her. This training manifested itself during the Bikochu filler arc in the form of Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, a combination of the Hyuga clan's most powerful techniques, the Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin, and 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. Over the timeskip she rose to the rank of Chunin, indicating that her training was effective in making her a better ninja and maybe actually being able to do jutsu like this in the manga.

Quotes

 * "I want to be strong."
 * "I want to change myself, into... into something better."
 * "Defend yourself! My brother!"
 * "When I watch you, I feel strong, like I can do anything, that even I am worth something."
 * "No-No way! That's so sudden!"
 * "It has been two and half years since I saw Naruto-kun, What should I say, I'm not ready to see him yet."
 * "Naruto-kun!!!"
 * "I... I... I...."

Trivia

 * Despite Hinata's lack of panel time compared to some of the other Konoha Eleven, Hinata is very popular in Naruto polls, frequently making in into top 10 favorite characters (she was placed 10th in the first Naruto manga anniversary poll, 6th in the second and third polls, and 9th in the fifth poll).
 * Creator Masashi Kishimoto had originally intended for Hinata to be a regular member of the Hyuga clan, but instead decided to make her a ninja.
 * Hinata portrays the ideal Yamato Nadeshiko.