Hiro Nakamura

Hiro Nakamura is a character on the NBC drama Heroes who possesses the ability to teleport and manipulate the space-time continuum. He is portrayed by actor Masi Oka.

Character history

Hiro Nakamura is an office worker living in Tokyo, Japan who one day discovers he has the power to manipulate time and space. Hiro is an otaku (a Japanese nerd) who is an avid fan of superheroes and science fiction. Naïve and over-eager, Hiro is both the series' comic reliefand the one character that aspires to the pure heroism of comic bookcrime fighters. His best (and apparently only) friend is the less geeky but equally hapless Ando Masahashi.

In the pilot episode,Hiro's power is developed sufficiently enough for him to turn the second-hand of his clock back one second. He later realizes this same power made a train in Tokyo fourteen seconds late. Ecstatic at these accomplishments, Hiro confides in Ando, who is skeptical about Hiro''s new abilities. Then, at Ando's suggestion, Hiro spaceports himself into the womens' bathroom of a local club. As Hiro is returning home,unconsoled, he happens to see a vacation ad for New York City in the train. Pushing the limits of his powers, Hiro concentrates and actually teleports himself into Times Square.

At first extremely happy, Hiro is later shocked to discover a comic book called 9th Wonders!in a nearby newsstand that shows himself standing in Times Square with his hands up and yelling, "I did it!", which happened just moments earlier. Perusing the comic book, Hiro discovers that his early conversations with Ando are there reproduced with eerie accuracy. The comic's back cover has the name and address of the artist and writer,precognitive Isaac Mendez.

Hiro visits Isaac's loft, discovering the artist's dead body, partly decapitated with the brain removed. Hiro is arrested by the police and during the interrogation discovers he has actually traveled not only through space, but through time as well. It was October 2 when he left Tokyo, and it's now November 8. Just as Hiro discovers this, he witnesses a cataclysmic explosion. Before the blast can hit him, Hiro teleports himself back to Tokyo at the same point from which he had originally left, still holding the comic he had picked up in the future.

Hiro tries to call the present-day Isaac Mendez several times but is unable to communicate because of Hiro's poor English. Hiro then tries to convince his friend Ando about what happened. Using the future comic book, Hiro manages to stop time to save a little girl who was about to be run over by a truck, an event which the comic depicted. Now convinced, Ando agrees to accompany Hiro to New York City in his"heroic journey" to save the world.

They take a plane to Los Angeles but go the rest of the way by car,because that is what the comic book says they do. Hiro and Ando then have several misadventures in Las Vegas,starting when Ando decides to hit the casinos. Ando convinces Hiro to use his powers to cheat, stopping time to give Ando winning hands in poker games. The two make a lot of money but are later beaten up by a player they cheated.

Their attempts to call Isaac Mendez are finally successful, as Peter Petrellianswers the phone, relaying a message from Hiro's future self, and tells them to come to New York City. However, the pair are detained further when the same player they cheated earlier (actually a criminal in the employ of Mr. Linderman)forces them to play a poker game to make money to repay what they gained before. Ando and Hiro manage to escape shortly before the other players are slaughtered by Jessica Sanders.Hiro is crestfallen that he is unable to stop their deaths in time but is comforted by Ando who claims Hiro is still beginning his journey to become a true hero.

Hiro exercises his power as a hero again when by chance he and Ando run across D.L. Hawkins and his son, Micah,at the scene of burning car wreck with a passenger trapped inside. AsD.L. frees the passenger, the vehicle explodes and Hiro freezes time to save them. Hiro complains about not having super strength when he is forced to drag the pair away from the explosion. After he unfreezes time, he shows the future edition of 9th Wonders! to Micah and speaks to him in English about his space-time manipulation powers.

Continuing their journey to New York, Hiro and Ando stop at a diner and meet a waitress named Charlie, who recently developed powers of her own. As Hiro talks to Charlie, who finds him to be "sweet", the man in the baseball capis watching them talk. Charlie is later found murdered in the diner''s storeroom with her brain removed in the same manner Hiro found Isaac in the future. Not wanting to fail to save someone like he did in Las Vegas, Hiro goes back in time in an attempt to prevent her murder,promising Ando that he'll return in five seconds.

Hiro's attempt to teleport to the day before Charlie's death goes awry, landing six months in the past on the day of Charlie's birthday.There, he tries to warn Charlie and protect her from the "very badman", but ends up forming a close relationship with her once he realizes just how far back he's traveled. He doesn't attempt to teleport again for fear of being eaten by a dinosaur (an unlikely outcome of another teleportation attempt gone awry). Eventually, he asks her to come with him to Japan. As the date of their departure gets closer, Charlie reveals that she has a blood clot in her brainand will die no matter what. She says she was going to give up beforehand came and that she has fallen in love with him. Just as they are about to kiss, Hiro inadvertently travels to Japan some time after he and Ando had left for the United States.Unable to return via his own powers, he is forced to make his way back to the diner through normal means. Ando, happy to see Hiro again,assumes Hiro used his powers and was successful, but Hiro corrects him.A sad, defeated Hiro says he failed and took public transportation back to the diner.

In "Fallout",Hiro and Ando find their way to Claire's high school, but arrive under Sylar's's attack and believe her to have already been killed. Ando tries to be optimistic about the situation, claiming that "save the cheerleader, save the world," is just a progression of events and not a conditional statement. While thinking about their next move, Hiro is called by Isacc Mendez, who arranges a meeting with them in Texas. Once they meet, Hiro shows Isaac the future 9th Wonders comic, much to his surprise, then asks him to paint the future. At first, Isaac isn't convinced he can do so without drugs, but once he realizes that some of his rough sketches depict Hiro traveling back to save Charlie,he tries again. Hiro recommends that Isaac concentrate, using the same face he makes when activating his own powers, and Isaac manages to activate his own power successfully. Isaac's painting depicts Hiro fighting a dinosaur, possibly a Carnotaurus, with a sword, seemingly confirming Hiro's earlier fears. Hiro remarks, "I really need to find that sword".

Future Hiro

Another Hiro Nakamura, this one claiming to be from the future, first appears in "Collision". When he appears to Peter Petrelliin a subway, he freezes time in order to speak with Peter privately. He urges Peter to "save the cheerleader, save the world" and "to be the one we need" but doesn't elaborate for fear of causing a rift in the space-time continuum.

The future Hiro appears to be much more fit, confident, and experienced than his present self. He no longer wears glasses, fashions a soul patch and ponytail hairstyle, wears a black overcoat, carries a sword strapped to his back, and speaks fluent American English. On the hilt of his sword is the symbol that appears in various points throughout the series

Powers and abilities

Hiro discovers in the first episode that he can manipulate the space-time continuum,giving him the power to freeze time relative to himself, travel through time, or teleport to any location at will. The first noted occurrences when Hiro inadvertently 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. In the third episode,he also froze time relative to himself. He could not hold time in this state for very long, but he since duplicated the feat repeatedly during a stop in Las Vegas.

Although stressful events and active use have helped Hiro to develop his abilities, he still lacks full control. For example, when he attempted to teleport to New York,he ended up inadvertently traveling five weeks into the future as well.Although he was able to travel back to the same time and place from which he left, he was only able to do so when his life was in danger from a nuclear explosion. Later, when he attempted to save Charlie's life by traveling to the day before her death, Hiro accidentally ended up six months in the past. He also inadvertently teleported to Japan from Texasjust as he and Charlie were about to kiss. Afterward, he could not teleport back, no matter how hard he tried. These trips have given Hiro his own unique time line, which is reflected in some of Isaac Mendez's paintings of Hiro.

Time alterations

Along with the existence of an alternate future version of himself, Hiro has come across or induced a few time paradoxes or alterations in the series.

• In "One Giant Leap", Hiro travels with Ando to the United States even though Ando was still in Japan when he had previously traveled to New York City five weeks into the future. When directly questioned about this by Ando, Hiro says they are changing history.
• Between the episodes "Seven Minutes to Midnight" and "Six Months Ago", Hiro traveled six months into the past in Texas.
  • There, he changed history again by forming a close relationship with Charlie in the past. This change was most noted by a picture which had originally shown only Charlie at her birthday party now showing both her and Hiro.
  • At one point, Hiro was able to give himself a phone call from Texas to Japan, though he immediately hung up after he realized it was the Hiro in Japan who had answered.
  • In "Seven Minutes to Midnight", Charlie said that someone had given her a small Japanese dictionary on her birthday, and in "Six Months Ago", Hiro is the one who gives her the Japanese dictionary.

Name

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".^[1]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 a homonym to the Japanese word for superhero.(, sūpāhīrō^?), and the fifth episode's title is "Hiros".

Interests

• Hiro's Blog, maintained by NBCand written from Hiro's point of view, is updated after each new episode is aired, usually about the events of the episode.Appropriately enough, after the airing of "Seven Minutes to Midnight", all of the entries and archives were removed, as though Hiro was never there to write them, and after "Homecoming",there was a post about Hiro meeting Charlie and a comment about the missing entries due to a "server glitch." Following Hiro's return to present in "Six Months Ago," all previous entries were restored.
• 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". (Vaan most likely refers to Van Fanel of Escaflowne. This could also be reference to Vaan from Final Fantasy XII.) One of Hiro's powers includes time manipulation, a gift shared with Jojo characters Jotaro Kujo and Dio Brando. Van Fanel traveled between Earth and the parallel world of Gaea, indicating teleportation.
• According to his blog, his favorite video games are Chrono Trigger (which dealt with time travel) and the Final Fantasy role-playing game series (particularly the sixth installment). He is also a fan of Future Trunks, a time traveler from the manga and anime Dragon Ball Z(the future version of Hiro shown in "Collision" and "Hiros" bears some resemblance to Future Trunks with his serious attitude and the sword strapped to his back).
• As he is being questioned by the police in "Don't Look Back", it is revealed 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.