Hiro Nakamura

Hiro Nakamura
Portrayed by	Masi Oka, Garrett Masuda (11-year-old Hiro), Sekai Murashige (8-year-old Hiro)
First appearance	Genesis
In-story stats
Known ability	Space-time manipulation
Formal name	中村広, Nakamura Hiro
Aliases	Jotaro Kujo, Takezo Kensei
Nicknames	Carp, Timewarp, Pikachu
Gender
Date of birth	1982
Home	Tokyo, Japan
Residence	Hiro Nakamura's home
Occupations	CEO of Yamagato Industries, former Yamagato office worker
Significant others	formerly Charlie Andrews (deceased), formerly Yaeko
Parents	Kaito Nakamura (deceased), Ishi Nakamura (deceased)
Sibling	Kimiko Nakamura (older sister)

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Hiro Nakamura (中村広, Nakamura Hiro) is a former computer programmer for Yamagato Industries. Hiro succeeded his late father as CEO of the company. Hiro is an evolved human who has the ability to bend space and time.

About

Bored with the monotony and conformity of his job as a salaried employee, Hiro Nakamura turns to his love of science fiction and fantasy as an escape. A bit of a dreamer, Hiro loves the idea of possessing powers, but the reality of it all becomes more than what he expected. Initially a happy-go-lucky fellow with an innocent view of adventure, Hiro's experiences force him to become more serious and determined. Hiro possesses a very strong sense of purpose and a solid moral foundation, and the events of the series only strengthen them.

Character History

Season One

For an episode-by-episode summary, see Hiro Nakamura: Season One History.

Hiro works at Yamagato Industries when his power manifests. He tries convincing his friend, Ando, but fails. Growing tired of Japan, he teleports to New York, only to be five weeks in the future. Collecting 9th Wonders! and seeing Isaac's dead body, he escapes an explosion and returns to the present. He convinces Ando of his ability, and they travel to Las Vegas. After cheating at gambling, the friends part ways after an argument, and Hiro meets Nathan in a diner, telling him about the future. Returning to Las Vegas and meeting with Ando, they end up helping the high roller they cheated until he is killed. They then help D.L. save a woman, and reach the Burnt Toast Diner, where Hiro hits it off with a waitress. She is soon killed, and Hiro time travels to save her.

He arrives six months in the past, and continually tries to tell Charlie of her impending fate. However, he falls in love with her, and visa versa, and Hiro proves his power by folding 1,000 origami cranes. They prepare to leave for Japan, when they lean in for a kiss - only for Hiro to appear on the rooftop of Yamagato Industries.

He returns to the Diner, and thinks he has failed in his task when the cheerleader Peter told him about is believed to have been killed. They meet with Isaac, and he paints Hiro facing a dinosaur. Hiro vows to get the sword, and goes to the Museum of Natural History with Ando. Finding his power rapidly diminishing over two weeks, Hiro finds the sword is owned by the Linderman Group and gets help from both Nathan and Simone to find it.

However, his father and sister try to stop him, but Hiro overcomes this. He and Ando reach Las Vegas once more, where they are further sidetracked when Ando decides to help Hope - a criminal who is using them. Afterwards, Hiro tells Ando to return to Japan, and goes to the Corinthian Casino himself. Tricking the curator, he gets the sword with a returning Ando's help, and travel to the future, where they meet with Hiro's future self. He is caught by Future Matt, and is consistently attacked for information. He is almost killed, but Future Mohinder saves him, and he meets with Ando, Future Hiro and Future Peter. Hiro and Ando return to the present day.

Returning to Isaac's loft, they find Isaac's body, as Sylar hears them. They escape, and continue following him, watching his home life and his visit with his mother. Hiro almost kills him, but escapes when Sylar gets the upperhand by breaking Hiro's sword. Hiro and Ando go to Jittetsu Arms, where Hiro trains with his father - only to find that Ando has left to fight Sylar. Hiro saves Ando from Sylar, and drops him off at Japan. He returns to Kirby Plaza, and stabs Sylar. Before he can kill Peter, Sylar throws Hiro at a building--causing him to appear outside Kyoto, Japan in 1671 between Whitebeard and Kensei as an eclipse occurs.

Season Two

For an episode-by-episode summary, see Hiro Nakamura: Season Two History.

Hiro lands in feudal Japan in between a battle between Whitebeard and his men against Takezo Kensei. He freezes time and teleports Kensei away from arrows, only to find the man is not Kensei. After the man runs away, Hiro his held at crossbow-point by the real Kensei, who is a white, Englishman. Hiro finds that Kensei is special, and can heal his wounds. Hiro attempts to make Kensei into the legend he was told as a child, but finds the task challenging. The two help Yaeko find her father and battle Whitebeard.

During their adventures, Hiro writes on scrolls and stores them in the hilt of Kensei's sword. Hiro falls in love with Yaeko, and she loves Hiro when disguised as Kensei. Conflict brews between Hiro and Kensei when he sees Yaeko kiss Hiro after they save the swordsmith. Hiro and Yaeko are kidnapped by Kensei, who turns them over to Whitebeard so he can lead Whitebeard's army to conquer Japan. Hiro escapes and tries to destroy Whitebeard's cache of guns, which would make conquering Japan easy. While trying to destroy the guns, Kensei fights Hiro, and the tent explodes just after Hiro teleports away. Hiro later finds a charred body, then teleports to the present, when Ando tells him that Kaito was murdered.

At Kaito's funeral, Hiro refuses to eulogize his father, and teleports to the day Kaito was killed. On a rooftop, Hiro tells his father that he is going to be killed, but Kaito accepts his death. Disappointed, Hiro takes his father back in time to when his mother was buried, but while there, Hiro realizes that he cannot prevent death. Instead, he teleports his father back to the rooftop and waits to see who kills him. While time is frozen, he sees that Kensei killed his father.

Hiro and Ando go through Company files and Hiro finds a picture from 1977 with his father and Kensei, who goes by the name Adam Monroe. Hiro teleports in time to find that Adam tried to release the Shanti virus to wipe out humanity. Hiro teleports to the present, only to tell Ando he is going to Texas to stop Adam. Hiro stops time and finds Adam with Peter, who isn't frozen with everyone else. Hiro tells Peter he will avenge Kaito's death, and draws his sword. Peter, however, threatens Hiro and shocks him, unfreezing time. Adam sees Hiro and comments that they must move fast. Hiro, defeated, walks outside, but finds Nathan and Matt. Together, they go to stop Peter and Adam before they can get the virus, but Peter stops Hiro again. While Matt and Nathan deal with Peter, Hiro goes into the Company vault to stop Adam. Hiro teleports Adam away, where he is burried in a coffin in Japan. Hiro returns to Yamagato Industries, where he joins Ando.

The Second Coming

Hiro, now the CEO of his father's company, sits bored and complains to Ando that he no longer has a "destiny". Then his father's lawyer knocks at the door and gives him a DVD his father made prior to his death. On the DVD, his father tells him his duty is to protect the contents of the safe in his office. Hiro jumps at the chance to prove himself yet again and opens the safe. Inside is another DVD and half of a chemical formula for something unknown. On the second DVD, his father tells him he must guard the formula with his life, but mere seconds later it is taken by an unknown speedster. Hiro manages to stop time momentarily and follows the trail to a young girl named Daphne, who appears frozen until she is able to move normally while time is frozen. Hiro tells her to return the formula, but she punches him in the face and speeds away with the formula. Later, Hiro and Ando are discussing the significance of the formula and how to get it back. Ando suggests that Hiro travels back to the past and make sure the formula is never stolen, but Hiro steadfastly refuses to go back to the past. However, he is open to traveling to the future to see the consequences of his mistakes and to figure out how to fix them. Hiro then disappears into the future, much to Ando's dismay. He teleports to the same place that he was in in the present day to find that the entire city is in chaos, with disaster sirens ringing and frightened citizens running for their lives. Hiro spots himself and Ando on top of a stairwell, arguing about the formula. Ando demands Hiro's half of the formula, but Hiro refuses and draws his sword on Ando. Ando hits Hiro with an unknown red blast, apparently killing him. He then steps over his dead friend's body and takes the formula. Hiro, shocked by this, continues walking and sees the Tokyo skyline crumbling before his very eyes. The force of the explosion blows a car directly at Hiro, who manages to teleport back to the present day just in time.

The Butterfly Effect

Hiro hires local investigators to track down the "speedster". They track her to France where they find a collection of stolen items in her living room, but they cannot seem to find the half of the formula that she stole. Upon Daphne's arrival, she is shocked to see the two Japanese men in her house but even more shocked to see that they have stolen her prized 12th-grade medal for the 100-yard dash. She tries grabbing it from Hiro, but even she is too slow for his teleportation. Hiro offers her a trade: her medal for his half of the formula. Daphne agrees and Hiro has Ando take the medal to her. She reneges on the deal and despite Hiro slowing down time she is able to pull a knife and threaten to kill Ando. She cuts Ando slightly and Hiro immediately backs down and unfreezes time letting her escape with both the medal and the formula. Ando claims that the plan didn't work, however Hiro informs him that he actually placed a tracking device on Daphne's medal and that she is now in Berlin. Hiro teleports himself and Ando out of the apartment.

One of Us, One of Them

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Heroes Evolutions

Hiro maintains a blog which he uses to journal his travels, record his thoughts, send messages to others, and play games. Hiro's blog has not been updated in some time.

A post on Evs Dropper's blog notes that the sailor of a "ghost ship" sometimes comes into contact with time-space travelers, like Hiro.

Evolved Human Abilities

Hiro discovers he has the ability to actually affect the space-time continuum, stopping or slowing time with sheer power of will. The first noted occurrence is when Hiro supposedly made a subway train late using this power. This is especially notable because a Japanese train being late at all is an extremely unlikely event. Later, he theorizes that he may soon be able to teleport by bending the space part of the continuum. Although this isn't seen, he does seem to teleport from the seating area of a Karaoke bar to a ladies' bathroom on a dare (said in jest) by Ando. When he believes he needs to go to New York, he concentrates intensely, teleporting himself to Times Square. However, at the same time he unintentionally moves five weeks into the future. Later, when an explosion threatens his life, he is able to teleport back to Japan, landing at the exact time and place of his original departure.

Although being able to teleport and time travel great lengths at once, Hiro apparently has little control over how much time elapses when he teleports. This shows that, without further honing of his powers, he may not be able to teleport great distances without also traveling in time. He has also frozen time relative to himself. He was able to keep time frozen long enough to fold one thousand paper cranes. (Six Months Ago)

Although no source has been cited for Hiro's powers beyond Heroes's general theme of evolution, in a free web comic released by NBC, Hiro's grandfather was hinted to have been directly affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima. Believing that he has done "a great disservice" to him, Hiro makes an origami crane out of the cover page for Action Comics #1, the comic book which introduced Superman.

Hiro's rules of time travel haven't yet been explicitly defined. Whether he changes time just by traveling, or whether it's more of a ripple effect is not known.

It should be noted that it appears Hiro's time-traveling powers may not supersede the principles of the self-consistency theory. This essentially states that a time traveler cannot alter history in such a way that he would cause a paradox to occur; rather, the events would self-correct. However, it seems Hiro's powers are controlled by "fate", as not only were his powers disabled at one point, but he traveled in both time and space against his will. This appears to be contradictory to Future Hiro's statement that he risked creating a "rift", as well as his existence being proof that he is trying to prevent the catastrophe.

Equipment

Formerly

• 9th Wonders! Issue #14--brought back from the future
• Ando's sword--used to stab Sylar
• Hiro and the Dinosaur painting--delivered to Mr. Linderman to gain access to Linderman's archives
• Nissan Versa--rented by Hiro and Ando at LAX
• Takezo Kensei's sword--once believed by Hiro to focus his powers; stolen from the Linderman archives

Memorable Quotes

"Yatta!"

- Hiro (Genesis)

"Fine. Stay here. Be just like everyone else. I wanna boldly go where no man has gone before."

- Hiro, Ando (Genesis)

"You cannot bribe a hero. My heart is true. My spirit unbreakable. When I meet your Big Boss, I will tell him the same thing!"

- Hiro (to Kaito's assistant) (The Fix)

"I understand, Father. To save what is most important, I must be strong enough, to cut out my heart."

- Hiro (to Kaito) (Landslide)

"Father. My whole life you have looked at me with disappointment. I do not wish to lose you now. But I cannot let my friend die. Not when I have the power to stop it."

- Hiro (to Kaito) (How to Stop an Exploding Man)

"I know. You have shown me what bravery is."

"Your whole life you talked about your favorite stories...Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, Kensei... All the heroes you wanted to be. One day, people will tell the story of... Hiro Nakamura."

- Hiro, Ando (How to Stop an Exploding Man)

"You're telling us your plan?! What kind of over-confident nemesis are you?!!"

- Hiro (to Daphne) (One of Us, One of Them)

Notes

• Hiro is named after Hiroshima, so that his family will always remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (The Crane). Tim Kring has been quoted as saying, "It's no coincidence we named him Hiro… he truly is on a hero's quest." To this end, his name is often used as a pun. His co-worker Ando once called him "Super-Hiro" in jest, which is actually similar to the Japanese word for superhero: スーパーヒーロー (sūpāhīrō), and the fifth episode is entitled Hiros.
• Hiro's wallet contains a membership card for the Merry Marvel Marching Society, a Marvel Comics fan club which has not distributed membership cards since the 1970s. (Don't Look Back)
• Hiro is on the list.
• When explaining to Ando where he got the idea of time not being an straight line, Hiro mistakenly cites X-Men, Issue #143 as the issue where Kitty Pryde travels back in time from a dark future. In fact, it happened in Uncanny X-Men, Issue #141, in the famous "Days of Future Past" storyline. However, Issue #143 does focus on Kitty Pryde's evolution as a super-hero. (Genesis)
• Hiro is a big fan of the Japanese anime and manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. In his blog, he states that he wants to "be like JoJo and Vaan and go on adventures". One of his powers includes time manipulation, a gift shared with JoJo characters Jotaro Kujo and Dio Brando. Vaan is the character the player takes the role of in Final Fantasy XII.
• His favorite video games are Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy (games that dealt with the manipulation of time), according to his blog.
• As confessed in his blog, Hiro is also a fan of Mirai Trunks, a time traveler from the manga and anime Dragon Ball Z. When "Future Hiro" visits Peter, it is a very similar encounter to the first encounter of Future Trunks with Son Goku, including Hiro's sword and Trunks' sword. (Hiros)
• Hiro's father said that he had been watching Hiro for "close to 30 years" (Four Months Later...). Hiro's exact age is unknown. However, it should be noted that the original casting call for Hiro listed his age as 24, as does his blog.
• Takezo Kensei's nickname for Hiro is "carp," a reference to the fact Hiro's face "looks like a fish" when he speaks.

Trivia

• Hiro has no brothers. (My Father, Hiro's blog)
• Hiro is a programmer with a level 3 security clearance. His ID number is 651283461132, and he is referred to as "a lowly office drone". (The Crane)
• Hiro's blog refers to Charlie saying, "Charlie wasn't my Marle, she was my Gwen Stacy." Marle refers to the character from a video game called Chrono Trigger, which follows a group of adventurers who are accidentally propelled through time. Gwen Stacy is the first true love of Spider-Man; she was killed by the Green Goblin, and was pivotal (and controversial) to the Spider-Man stories.
• The senior vice president of the design division at Nissan Motor Co. is named Shiro Nakamura. Nissan is a prominent sponsor of Heroes.
• Prior to The Kindness of Strangers, Hiro had appeared in every episode. (It should be noted that in Company Man, he was played by Garrett Masuda; Masi Oka did not appear.)
• Hiro's given name in kanji is probably 広, coming from the kanji for Hiroshima, 広島. His family name in kanji is the common form of Nakamura, 中村 as seen in Cautionary Tales.
• In early versions of the script, Hiro's name was originally Hiro Tanaka.
• According to the official site for the Season One DVD, Hiro's AIM screen name is yattaimhiro.

See Also

• For Hiro as he appeared in the Explosion Future, see Hiro Nakamura (future).
• For articles related to Hiro, see Related Articles:Hiro.
• For images of Hiro, see Images of Hiro Nakamura.
• For information about Hiro's weblog, see Hiro's blog.
• For other uses of Hiro, see Hiro (disambig).

Fan Theories

Please refer to Theory:Hiro Nakamura for fan-created theories and other speculation.