Hanabi Hyūga

is a kunoichi from Konohagakure and the heiress of the Hyūga clan.

Background
Hanabi is the younger daughter of the Hyūga clan's head, Hiashi Hyūga. While always looking up to her older sister Hinata and wanting to spend more time with her, Hinata's duties as the future heiress of their clan made it hard for the two sisters to have any quality time together. Watching Hinata and seeing her as strong yet so kind, Hanabi aspired to be more like Hinata. Later, Hanabi watched her sister's training, only to witness Neji trying to harm her and he was later stopped by Hiashi, who then activated his curse seal. She was soon approached by her grandfather, who explained that the Hyūga clan must go to extremes sometimes to protect their secrets and everyone has a set path in life that they must endure. Hanabi also spied on Hinata as she would often leave home to watch Naruto Uzumaki from afar, making her wonder why Hinata was so fixated on the social outcast.

In the anime, during sparring sessions between Hanabi and her sister, Hanabi's talent began to shine, amazing everyone by being about on par with her older sister despite their age difference. Later, as Hinata's progress began to be questioned, their grandfather suggested training Hanabi to be the heiress, and ultimately, a duel was held between Hanabi and Hinata to decide the future of their clan. While Hinata found an opening to win the fight, she hesitated to strike down her sister, allowing Hanabi to counter-attack and win the duel, much to Hanabi's distaste at hurting her sister.

Ultimately, as Hanabi showed more talent and confidence than her elder sister Hinata, their father decided to make Hanabi the heiress to the clan, and focused his gruelling training regime on her instead of her sister, whose training he considered to be a waste of time. As Hanabi continued to train under her father, believing the words of her grandfather that all are tied to an unchanging fate, Hanabi became determined to prove herself worthy of being the next head of the Hyūga clan.

Personality
Hanabi's character was not expanded on in the manga very much. In the anime, Hanabi seems to be a quiet, polite and respectful girl, although she seems to open up to people a bit easier than her sister. Unlike how Hinata once was, Hanabi is more confident. In the anime, since a young age, Hanabi adored her elder sister, always wanting to spend time with Hinata and just being close to her. She was also sad when she learned the harsh conditions Hinata had to endure. When Hanabi learned of the harsh nature the Hyūga lived by and that she would be expected to lead her clan, Hanabi gradually became more hardened, similar to Neji's original views in pre-destined fate and its inescapable nature, determined to not let her clan down as the future leader.

After seeing her sister rise beyond everyone's expectations and grow so strong, Hanabi regained much of her previous joyful demeanour. Also in the anime, she gained great respect for the social outcast, Naruto. This came not only from changing the views of both Neji and Hinata for the better by inspiring them, but also convincing herself of being able to shape her own fate.

She is also supportive of Hinata's feelings for Naruto, as shown two years after the war. Hanabi is also described as a "fashionable young woman and extravagant in her tastes". She is shown to dote on her niece and nephew Himawari and Boruto, gushing over them when they came to visit the Hyūga estate. At the same time, she encourages them to be independent and only ask for help with their problems only after they tried everything else. Hanabi also takes great pride in her cooking, comically showing annoyance when Boruto stated that her sister was better. Overall, Hanabi still has a strong compassion for Boruto, strongly wanting to see him succeed. To which, she has developed a strong bond with Konohamaru Sarutobi, who also sees Boruto as a younger brother.

Appearance
Hanabi is a young woman with long, black hair (depicted as dark-brown in the anime), that reaches down to the middle of her back, with long parted bangs with a single lock of hair falling into her face. She also has large, white eyes — a trait shared by all members of her clan. In the anime, her eyes have a hint of lilac in them. Overall, she resembles her father. In Part I, she was seen wearing a sleeveless, blue v-neck shirt with mesh armour underneath; blue shorts and sandals. Her hair reached the middle of her back.

During Part II, Hanabi had cut her hair short, framing her face in an asymmetrical bob style with the front bangs reaching below her chin. She wore a modified version of her original outfit and had a tan vest jacket with white wristbands on both hands. She wore shinobi sandals with white bands underneath around her ankles. At the time of Pain's Assault, she wore a light yellow kimono with light violet painted textures, a red-orange obi with a green cord around, and white tabi with sandals. Hanabi also had a pink flower hair clip attached to her hair on the left side.

Two years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, her hair has grown significantly longer and is tied into a lower ponytail, with a white ribbon. Her hair now reaches well past her hips, and she has two shorter strands of hair in the front with pink ribbons at the ends. She wears a tan-coloured and long-sleeved kimono shirt with red-orange flames designed on it with a matching knee-length skirt, along with a white obi around her waist.

Years later, Hanabi has grown noticeably taller and slender. She now wears her hair with shorter bangs in the front reaching her chin to frame her face while the rest of her hair which she keeps in a ponytail and reaches her shins. She wears a yellow kimono blouse, a traditional long red skirt held closed by a simple white obi.

Abilities
While unseen to what level, Hiashi noted that Hanabi showed much more potential than her elder sister Hinata, and was more suited for the role of heiress of the Hyūga clan. Her growth-rate greatly impressed her entire clan, making many wonder if she should be the heiress before it was even brought into official question. In later years, her talent was further shown as while still training to become the heiress, she also became a sensei for Team 15, proving her abilities to multitask.

Taijutsu
From a young age, Hanabi showed strong instincts in hand-to-hand combat. Despite originally not gaining intense training from their father at the time like her older sister, Hanabi soon became able to fight on par with Hinata through sheer solo training. In the anime, she was able to defeat Hinata in their sparring duel (albeit this partially stemmed from Hinata's reluctance to harm her sister). Between her raw talent and rigorous training from Hiashi, Hanabi gradually became very proficient in Gentle Fist. In the anime, during a duel with Boruto, she showed considerable evasiveness and precision, able to effortlessly dodge and parry all of his attacks used alongside his shadow clones. She could also perform her clan's advanced hiden techniques, like the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven and the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm.

Byakugan
As a Hyūga, Hanabi possesses the Byakugan, a dōjutsu kekkei genkai. While a common trait for her clan, Hanabi's is noted by her father to be very powerful, almost as great as her cousin Neji's. Hanabi herself is also very confident about her Byakugan, claiming that its perception is as good as any fully grown Hyūga's. Toneri Ōtsutsuki described her Byakugan as being "very pure" and specifically targeted her Byakugan in order to awaken the Tenseigan. When activated, it grants her an almost 360° field of vision (except for a small blind spot), x-ray vision, and the ability to see chakra accurate enough to target the chakra pathway system.

Chūnin Exams
In the anime, as Hanabi continued arduously pushing herself to become stronger, she learned of Hinata entering the Chūnin Exams. Later, Hanabi was shocked when she learned that Hinata was badly injured facing Neji. When Hanabi went to visit Hinata in the hospital, she was amazed to learn that Hinata was determined to change herself and refused to give up even against a stronger opponent like Neji, wanting to be more like Naruto.

Later, Hanabi watched Neji's match against Naruto during the final round of the Chūnin Exams with her father, and was amazed to see that he had learned powerful secret techniques on his own. In the anime, Hanabi was also amazed at Naruto's determination to exceed everyone's expectations of him, much like Hinata. She also knew nothing about the failed attempt to kidnap Hinata that had resulted in her uncle Hizashi's death and was shocked to learn of it when it was brought up during the match.

Konoha Crush
In the anime, she appeared with her father at the funeral of the Third Hokage. After the Konoha Crush, while Hanabi became conflicted by the various beliefs of destiny, she was shocked to see Neji, a branch member who openly despised the main house, willingly help Hinata train and also voice his changed opinion about destiny thanks to Naruto.

Search for Tsunade
In the anime, Hanabi attended Tsunade's inauguration as the next Hokage, standing with her cousin Neji and his teammate Tenten.

Akatsuki Suppression Mission
In the anime, as Hanabi struggled learning the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, she began to get discouraged. She later heard about how much stronger Naruto had become in facing the Akatsuki, and began inspiring everyone to follow from his example. Hanabi was amazed to watch Hinata do just that, mastering more advanced Hyūga techniques all in the effort of keeping up with Naruto.

Pain's Assault
During Pain's attack on Konoha, Hanabi was away with her father. In the anime, while she and her father were dealing with political matters between the Hyūga and allied clans such as the Taketori clan, they received word about the attack. Upon returning to the village, they were horrified at the level of destruction following the attack, and even more surprised to hear that no one died. What truly amazed Hanabi and her father was that it was Naruto who saved everyone, after he was protected and inspired by Hinata who risked her life to help Naruto. Later, seeing Hinata grow so strong and determined yet retained her kindness, Hanabi was very happy for her sister in finding her own path, becoming determined to do the same. In the spirit of this, she cheerfully asked her father to train her, to which he proudly agreed.

Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown
In the anime, after the Fourth Shinobi World War was announced, Hanabi wished her sister good luck before she headed off to fight, and promised to look after the clan while she was gone.

Kaguya Ōtsutsuki Strikes
In the anime, after the war concluded, Hanabi attended Konoha's mass funeral alongside her father and Natsu.

The Last: Naruto the Movie
Two years after the event of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Hanabi is seen spying on her flustered sister one night at the Hyūga mansion. Hanabi encourages Hinata to give Naruto her gift and then shows Hinata her new decorated kunai. This prompted Hinata to call her childish, causing Hanabi to retort that her Byakugan is better than most adults. Hanabi teases her when her stomach growls. Hinata, embarrassed, insists that she won't confess anything and leaves with Hanabi suggesting she should present herself more.

Hanabi is later kidnapped by a puppet from an army led by a mysterious man from the Ōtsutsuki clan, who had failed to capture Hinata due to Naruto's intervention. Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Sai, and Shikamaru are then deployed to retrieve her. After capturing her, Toneri transplants Hanabi's Byakugan into himself, using them to awaken the Tenseigan. Hanabi is visited by her sister after she's been captured and reached out to grab her hand, with Hinata promising to save her.

Later, Sai and Sakura separate from their group and save Hanabi from puppets. Once Toneri is defeated, Hinata retrieves Hanabi's eyes and implants them back into her sister. Sakura, Sai, Shikamaru and Hanabi then exit out of the Moon's entrance, watching Naruto and Hinata kiss in the moonlight.

Konoha Hiden: The Perfect Day for a Wedding
Hanabi attended Naruto and Hinata's wedding with her father, holding up a portrait of Neji in their group photo.

Academy Entrance Arc
In the anime, when Naruto along with Boruto and Himawari visit the Hyūga estate, Hanabi greets them at the gate, first chastising her father for fawning over his grandchildren in such an embarrassing way before she herself rushes to them and begins fawning over them. As Naruto, Boruto and her father meet, Hanabi plays in the courtyard with Himawari. As Boruto claimed to have manifested his Byakugan, it was decided to test the theory. Hiashi insisted on a sparring match with him for the speculated Byakugan to show itself. However, out of concern for her father's bad back and her nephew's well-being due to Hiashi's lack of restraint, Hanabi insisted that she would spar Boruto instead.

While Boruto eagerly accepted, the dōjutsu did not manifest during the match, leading the others to conclude that Boruto has not awakened the Byakugan. Afterwards, it was decided for Naruto and his kids to spend the night at the estate, leading Hanabi to eagerly cook a meal for everyone. Later, finding her nephew pouting, Hanabi comforted him, encouraging him to keep working hard and to take comfort in having her to come to for help if things got too hard.

Genin Mission Arc
In the anime, after the Genin Exams concluded, Hanabi went to the Academy, where Shino Aburame assigns Sumire Kakei, Namida Suzumeno and Wasabi Izuno to Hanabi. Upon meeting the genin, Hanabi introduces herself as the captain of Team 15, and says she's looking forward to working with the girls. Afterwards the team received their first mission from Naruto.

Byakuya Gang Arc
In the anime, when the Byakuya Gang began gaining support from several villagers in Konoha, the villagers staged a protest against the Kaminarimon Company, resulting in Team 15 and other shinobi being dispatched to pacify the movement. Ultimately, it was discovered that several of the protesters were under genjutsu, leading to her and other shinobi dispelling it. This act, along with Naruto's speech, helped calm and disband the protest.

Versus Momoshiki Arc
In the anime, as the next Chūnin Exams drew near, Hanabi continued to prepare her students. Later, they were assigned a mission to capture all the escaped animals from Fire Park. Hanabi had her students handle all the small animals while she went for the larger, more dangerous ones. She was then approached by Sai Yamanaka. Having been told about the special circumstances around Sumire, Sai would regularly meet with Hanabi about Sumire's development ever since the Nue incident. Ultimately, it was decided to let Sumire reconcile with her friends at her own pace. Later, as Hanabi went to find the last creature on her list, a giant white-maned wolf, she discovered that her students were attacked by it. Deciding to see first how the genin would handle the beast before she helped, Hanabi was pleasantly surprised to see them take down the wolf, to which Hanabi congratulated them.

Ultimately, she presented her students with entrance forms to take the exams. On the day of the final exam, Hinabi watched Naruto combat Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki's Tailed Beast Ball from a safe distance aware from the tournament's arena alongside Sumire.

Trivia

 * means "fireworks".
 * According to the databook(s):
 * Her favourite foods are bananas and milk, while her least favourite food is mitsuba.
 * Her hobby is training with her father.
 * Despite Kishimoto designing a post time-skip version of Hanabi revealed in Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth Full Power Ninja Chronicles spin-off, she appeared in her Part I design in Hinata's Infinite Tsukuyomi dream in the manga. The error was corrected in the anime.
 * As the younger sibling, there was a possibility that she would be placed in the Branch Family and receive a cursed seal, once the next heir had turned three. However, because her father felt that Hanabi was a more suitable heiress than Hinata, and because there have been several changes in the way the Hyūga family works, she became exempt from this. Since she is a girl, however, it is also possible she was never meant to have a cursed seal in the first place, as Japanese tradition usually only allows men to start a branch family.