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
Nickname	Carp
Gender
Date of birth	1982
Home	Tokyo, Japan
Residence	Hiro Nakamura's home
Occupation	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 programmer at Yamagato Industries based in Tokyo, Japan who possesses 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.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Graphic Novel:Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, Part 2

Daphne watches Hiro and Ando argue through a camera feed on her cell phone.

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)

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 was born in Osaka, Japan. (Five Years Gone)
• 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 dark 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.