Hiro Nakamura
| Hiro Nakamura | |
|---|---|
| |
| Portrayed by | Masi Oka, Garrett Masuda (young Hiro) |
| First appearance | Genesis |
| In-story stats | |
| Known ability | Space-time manipulation |
| Formal name | 中村広 Nakamura Hiro |
| Alias | Jotaro Kujo |
| Gender | |
| Age | 24 |
| Date of birth | circa 1982 |
| Home | Tokyo, Japan |
| Residence | Hiro Nakamura's home |
| Occupation | Office worker |
| Significant other | formerly Charlie Andrews (deceased) |
| Parents | Kaito Nakamura, Ishi Nakamura |
| Sibling | Kimiko Nakamura (older sister) |
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Hiro Nakamura (中村広 Nakamura Hiro) is a programmer at Yamagato Industries in Tokyo, Japan and possesses the ability to manipulate space and time.
About
Hiro is a salaried employee, bored with the monotony and conformity of his job. He is also a huge science-fiction nerd, sometimes referring to Star Trek, the X-Men, and Back to the Future. Hiro is a bit of a dreamer and loves the idea of having powers, though he's finding the reality more difficult than expected. Initially very happy-go-lucky, Hiro's adventures have already begun to sober him to a certain extent. While Hiro has a very strong sense of purpose and a good moral compass, he is also a little unworldly and finds himself easily manipulated by his friend Ando, whose motives are frequently more down-to-earth.
Character History
Season One
For an episode-by-episode summary, see Hiro Nakamura: Season One History.
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Powers
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
- 9th Wonders! Issue #14--brought back from the future
- Ando's sword--used to kill 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--believed by Hiro to focus his powers; stolen from the Linderman archives
Memorable Quotes
"You don't understand, I want to be special."
"We are not special! We are Japanese!"
"Fine. Stay here. Be just like everyone else. I wanna boldly go where no man has gone before."
"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."
"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)
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)
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.
- To date, Hiro is one of two characters that have appeared in all episodes of Heroes. However, 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 probably the common form of Nakamura, 中村.
- 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.