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Shōyō Hinata (Japanese: 日向翔陽 Hinata Shoyo) is the main protagonist of the Haikyuu!! series written and illustrated by Haruichi Furudate. He is a first year student at Karasuno High School who joined the volleyball team as a middle blocker. Hinata's dream is to become strong enough to spike past tall blockers just like what the Small Giant once did. That's why he specializes in jumping to compensate for his lack of height.
Appearance
Hinata's height is 162.8 cm, making him the second shortest person on his team, next to Yū Nishinoya. He has messy orange hair and brown eyes. He has a relatively short build and is often mistaken as an elementary school student. He is mostly seen in his Karasuno school uniform, a black jacket and black pants. Beneath his jacket is a beige or tan sweatshirt. In the first episode, he wore the green volleyball uniform from his middle school.
After joining Karasuno's Volleyball Club, Hinata wears its volleyball uniform–a black jersey and black shorts with white and orange stripes on the sides. On the back of his jersey is his position number, 10, with his school's name written in kanji. While on court, he wears kneepads and volleyball shoes that are white with red stripes.
Personality
Hinata has a cheerful and energetic personality. He's a natural schmoozer and his teammates would sometimes use him to win someone over, such as Nishinoya. Hinata gets excited easily and often talks loudly. He is friendly and can befriend anyone easily, such as Kenma from Nekoma High and Aone from Date Tech High.
Despite his easy-going personality, Hinata is extremely competitive, especially when it comes to volleyball. As stated by Sugawara, Hinata has a very big fortitude to win and thus, doesn't give up easily during a match no matter if it's a practice match or a real match. Hinata can also exhibit a very scary and intimidating face when people underestimate him. Despite that, Hinata gets scared easily, especially by larger and stronger opponents. However, he recovers quickly and will then confidenty challenge the opponents.
Hinata, like Kageyama, has bad grades since most of the time; volleyball is the only thing on his mind. He also stated to Suga once that since entering high school, he hasn't scored in the double digits on his tests.
Statistics
| High School Statistics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | 1/5 | ||
| Jumping | 5/5 | ||
| Stamina | 5/5 | ||
| Game Sense | 1/5 | ||
| Technique | 1/5 | ||
| Speed | 5/5 | ||
Hinata is often described as clumsy yet incredibly athletic. He didn't know much about volleyball before entering Karasuno High but started trying to learn as much as he could after. He also tries to learn from mistakes made in past matches and can improve his skills merely by watching his opponents and teammates and trying to copy their movements, although most of the time he fails.
After doing a ton of flying falls during the summer training camp, Hinata's agility improved by a lot. When he goes to save balls, he doesn't fly over and crash into the wall anymore. He can also switch hand midway through a spike if the ball goes in the wrong direction. He also accidentally learned how to "block out" by himself, but he can only use that technique when he pin-points the blockers' hands. What's more, thanks to Bokuto, Hinata learned to how to feint which helps him surprise blockers.
Hinata has also admitted to Keishin Ukai that when he's spiking and he's over the net, he can see the movements his opponents make and even the looks on their faces.
Stamina and Speed
Hinata is known as the fastest player on his team and has incredible, seemingly unlimited stamina; that is due to him riding his bike 30 minutes through the mountain each morning to get to school. He can easily go from the left side of the court to the right side before his opponents can even react.
Jumping
Hinata's height is considered short for a middle blocker. Because of this, many of his opponents (even the super ace Ushiwaka) and his teammates are surprised that he can jump very high easily. During the summer training camp, he learned how to jump diagonally using tempo from the former coach Ukai.
God Fast Spike Combination
Hinata and Kageyama are sometimes called the "freak duo" due to Kageyama's incredibly quick toss and Hinata's complete trust in the setter. Kageyama would send the toss to Hinata at an extremely fast speed and Hinata would spike it with his eyes closed.
This combo has evolved into having many different types of attacks. Since the summer training camp arc, Kageyama has changed his toss to a sort of drop motion. Hinata also learned how to spike using tempo from the former Coach Ukai. The toss used to go straight at the perfect timing for Hinata to hit but now, the ball would go above Hinata's reach and then drop down to meet his hand. During the Spring High, when Karasuno went against Aobajōsai High, Hinata discovered a new attack after Kageyama accidentally set the ball too close to the net. The ball would be set almost on top of the net and Hinata would spike it straight down in an area where the blockers and libero can't reach.
Decoy
Since Hinata is the fastest player, most of the time the opponents will be confused as to whether Kageyama will toss to Hinata or to the other spiker which helps Karasuno gain points easily. Because of this, Hinata is dubbed the "ultimate" decoy.
Other Appearances
Tanaka-Senpai's Nightmare:
A few days before the 3-on-3 match between the first years, Tanaka goes to the gym at 4:55 AM, happy that he arrived before any of the first years did. However, when he opens the door, he finds Hinata and Kageyama already training inside. The next day, Tanaka arrives at 4 AM in an attempt to beat the first years. This time, Hinata and Kageyama came even earlier, at 3 AM. Later on, Tanaka sees Hinata and Kageyama putting their sleeping bags out, saying that they're going to stay overnight outside the gymnasium. In the end, the entire thing turns out to be Tanaka's dream.
The Battle at Lunch Break:
Hinata is seen possessing the last yakisoba bread after Nishinoya and Tanaka were been beaten up by two school girls because they looked under their skirts.
Nisekyū!!
Yū and Tanaka fight with guys from a different school after they picked on Kiyoko, causing the two to do roadwork outside of their prefecture. Hinata and Kageyama, who were just standing nearby, are also confronted in doing roadwork. Hinata sees an announcement about a beach volleyball tournament on a board and the boys wanted to participate, but Tanaka is afraid that Daichi will find out. However, he changes his mind when Yū points out some beautiful women.
The match starts and their opponents are Raku, Chitoge, Onodera, Tsugumi, and Tachibana. After noticing that the other team is full of girls, Hinata tries to play softly with them, but Tsugumi spikes a ball at Hinata that he fails to save, causing the opponents to score. The strength of the opponents shocks the boy. After the match, they all go to a restaurant. Onodera offers meat to Hinata and the latter blushes while trying to accept it.
Trivia
- *Shōyō (翔陽) can be read as "flying heaven" while actually "yō" has different meanings which are: "sunshine, yang principle, positive, male, heaven, or daytime". His last name Hinata (日向) can be read as "place in the sun".
- In the first popularity poll, Hinata was ranked 2nd, after Kageyama with 6,058 votes. In the second popularity poll, he was ranked 1st with 12,720.
- Favorite Food: Tamago Kake Gohan.
- Current Concern: he can't catch a ball one-handed.