Hiro Nakamura

Hiro Nakamura
Portrayed by	Masi Oka
First appearance	Genesis
In-story stats
Known ability	Bends the space-time continuum. Time manipulation Time travel Teleportation
Gender
Age	24
Residence	Hiro Nakamura's home
Occupation	Office worker

Hiro Nakamura works at Yamagoto Industries as a programmer, in Tokyo, Japan. He is a salaried employee, bored with the monotony and conformity of his job. He is also a huge science-fiction nerd, often referring to Star Trek or the X-Men. Hiro discovers he has the ability to manipulate space and time.

Character history

Genesis

In his cubicle, Hiro is able to utilize a recently-discovered power: he makes the second-hand on his clock go back one second. Ecstatic, Hiro runs throughout the office, excitedly yelling "Yatta!" (I did it!) His friend Ando Masahashi is skeptical, joking that Hiro possesses the same skills as Mr. Spock.

Hiro begins to hypothesize that in addition to altering time, he could also teleport. Ando is more concerned with the personal gain that could potentially result from his friend's superpower. However, Hiro is adamant in the belief that a superhero should never use his or her powers in such a way. At a karaoke bar one night, Ando dares Hiro to teleport into the women's bathroom. Hiro agrees and succeeds, but is thrown from the bar.

Ando is unable to comprehend Hiro's enthusiasm over being so different from everyone else. All their lives they had been taught to remain the same. Hiro leaves in frustration. The next day, Hiro sees a vacation ad for New York City on a train. After intense concentration, he manages to teleport himself into Times Square. Awe-struck, Hiro lifts his hands up and yells "Yatta! Hello, New York!"

Don't Look Back

In New York, Hiro finds and buys a copy of 9th Wonders! Issue #14, a comic whose cover featurs Hiro standing in Times Square with his hands up, yelling "I did it!", exactly as just happened. He discovers the partially decapitated Isaac Mendez, and witnesses the nuclear explosion in New York that Isaac himself had predicted in a painting. Before the explosion hits him, Hiro teleports himself back to the train in Tokyo, back in the 'present' time frame.

One Giant Leap

Hiro works hard to try to convince Ando of his powers, and of the future. He shows Ando the 9th Wonders comic, which details nearly every event that is going to happen to them that day. Though Ando remains skeptical, Hiro leads him to a place where a schoolgirl is depicted in the comic to be hit by a bus. Managing the find the girl and freeze time, he hurries through the mess of items the truck collides with (including a table full of vinyl Mazinger Z figures). After Hiro moves the girl's time-frozen body just out of harm's way, time begins to move again. Hiro and Ando then celebrate the achievement, and Hiro convinces Ando to go with him to New York, NY. They fly to Los Angeles, CA and rent a car to drive to Las Vegas, all the while following the comic's storyline, but somewhere after they rent a Nissan Versa, the issue reads "To be continued…"

Collision

After driving to Las Vegas, Ando convinces Hiro to exploit his power to win money. Later, they are thrown out of the casino and attacked by some poker players they cheated against. Later, a future version of himself appears to Peter Petrelli on a subway carrying a katana. Speaking in perfect English, Hiro tells Peter he is there to give him a message.

Hiros

Hiro and Ando are dumped out of a van in the desert outside Las Vegas, near the "Fly By Night" diner. As they enter, they argue, and Ando leaves . Just then, Hiro witnesses Nathan Petrelli landing just outside the diner. When Nathan comes in, Hiro talks to him, explaining in broken English that he saw him fly and that he is also special, able to bend space and time. He tells Nathan about the explosion, but Nathan seems to write him off as crazy. When Nathan asks if Hiro knows the result of the election, Hiro tells him he won "in a mudslide". Hiro then begs a ride back into town from Nathan. Decked out with a Vote Petrelli badge, he makes his way back to his rental car, only to discover that he can neither drive it nor read the manual. Eventually, Ando shows up and they resume their journey together. With Ando's help Hiro places a call to Isaac Mendez to warn him about the future. Peter Petrelli picks up the phone and tells Hiro that he has a message for him.

Better Halves

Hiro is told that a future version of himself says he must help "save the cheerleader" and to meet Peter Petrelli in New York City. As they leave they are intercepted by the high roller who compels them to help him cheat in a private poker game. When Ando sees a gun, he pulls Hiro into the bathroom moments before a raucous breaks out and everyone is killed. Hiro is unable to stop time quickly enough to save them. Having esstentially hidden in the bathroom, he begins to doubt whether he's the hero he thought he was.

Powers

Hiro discovers he can 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 to Time Square, New York, five weeks into the future. Ultimately, he is also able to revert the process to the exact place and moment he left when an explosion in the alternate future threatens his life. Although being able to teleport and time travel great lengths at once, Hiro had no apparent control over how much time elapsed when he teleported. This shows that, without further honing of his powers, he cannot teleport great distances without also traveling in time. He has also froze time relative to himself. However, he can not yet hold time in this state for very long.

Although no source has been cited for Hiro's powers beyond Heroes' 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 and Nagasaki. 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.

Notes

• According to the online comic on NBC.com, Hiro is named after Hiroshima, so that his family will always remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 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's title is "Hiros".
• The scene where "Future Hiro" visits Peter is very similar (including Hiro's katana) to the first encounter of Future Trunks with Son Goku in the Dragon Ball Z manga and anime. As noted in his blog, Hiro is a confessed fan of Future Trunks.
• The scene where Ando and Hiro buy new suits and go down an escalator is just like Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Rain Man.

Interests

• He 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.

• According to his blog, his favorite video games are Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy (games that dealt with the manipulation of time). He is also a fan of Mirai Trunks, a time traveller from the manga Dragon Ball.

• In the second episode, Don't Look Back, it is said that 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.

Blogs/Websites

• Hiro's blog
• Hiro's MySpace page