Hanabi Hyūga

Hanabi Hyuga is a kunoichi of Konohagakure and the heiress of the Hyuga clan. She is the daughter of Hiashi Hyuga and the younger sister of Hinata Hyuga, as well as the aunt of Boruto and Himawari Uzumaki.

Background

Early Life

Hanabi is the youngest daughter of the Hyuga clan’s head Hiashi Hyuga. While always looking up to her older sister Hinata and wanting to spend more time with her, Hinata’s duties as the future heiress of their clan prevented the two sisters to have any quality time together. Watching Hinata and seeing her as strong yet so kind, Hanabi aspired to be more like Hinata. Later, Hanabi watched her sister’s training, only to witness Neji trying to harm her and he was later stopped by Hiashi, who then activated his cursed seal. She was soon approached by her grandfather, who explained that the Hyuga clan must go to extreme sometimes to protect their secrets and everyone has a set path in life that they must endure. Hanabi also spied on Hinata as she would often leave home to watch Naruto Uzumaki from afar, making her wonder why Hinata was so fixated on the social outcast.

In the anime, during sparring sessions between Hanabi and her sister, Hanabi’s talent began to shine, astonishing everyone by being about on par with her older sister despite their age difference. Later, as Hinata’s progress began to be questioned, their grandfather suggested training Hanabi to be the heiress, and ultimately, a duel was held between Hanabi and Hinata to decide the future of their clan. While HInata found an opening to win the fight, she hesitated to strike down her sister, allowing Hanabi to counter-attack and win the duel, much to Hanabi’s distaste at hurting her sister.

Ultimately, as Hanabi showed more talent and confidence than her elder sister Hinata, their father decided to make Hanabi the heiress of the clan, and focused his grueling training regime on her instead of her sister, whose training he considered to be a disgrace. As Hanabi continued to train under her father, believing the words of her grandfather that all are tied to an unchanging fate, Hanabi became determined to prove herself worthy of being the next head of the Hyuga clan.

Personality

She is also supportive of Hinata’s feelings for Naruto, as shown two years after the war. Hanabi is also described as a “fashionable young woman and extravagant in her tastes”. She is shown to dote on her niece Himawari and her nephew Boruto gushing over them when they came to visit the Hyuga estate. At the same time, she encourages them to be independent and only ask for help with their problems only after they tried everything else. Hanabi also takes great pride in her cooking, comically annoyance when Boruto stated that her sister was better.

Appearance

Hanabi bears a striking resemblance to her father: she has black hair, which is depicted as dark-brown in the anime. Her hair is seen in different lengths: In Part I of Naruto, Hanabi’s hair reached the middle of her back, but in Part II of Naruto, her hair is short, framing her face in an asymmetrical bob style with the front bangs bangs reaching below her chin. In The Last: Naruto the Movie, two years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, her hair has grown significantly longer tied into a lower ponytail, with a white ribbon. Her hair now reaches well past her her hips, and she has two shorter strands of her hair in the front with pink ribbons at the ends. Years later, Hanabi has grown noticeably taller and now wears her hair with shorter bangs in the front reaching her chin to frame her face while the rest of her hair which she keeps in a ponytail and reaches her chin.

In Part I of Naruto, she was seen wearing a sleeveless, blue v-neck shirt with mesh armor underneath; blue shorts and sandals. During Part II, she wore a modified version of her original outfit and had a tan vest jacket with white wristbands on both hands. She wore shinobi sandals with white bands underneath around her ankles. In the arc involving Pain’s assault on Konoha, while Hanabi was with her farther for political matters, she wore a light yellow kimono with light violet painted textures, a red-orange obi with a green cord around, and white tabi with sandals. Hanabi also had a pink flower hair clip attached to her hair on the left side.

Abilities

Taijutsu

From a young age, Hanabi has demonstrated strong instincts in hand-to-hand combat. Despite originally not gaining intense training from her father at the time like her older sister, Hanabi soon became able to fight on par with Hinata through sheer solo training. In the anime, she was able to defeat Hinata in their sparring duel (albeit this partial stemmed from Hinata’s reluctance to harm her sister). Between her raw talent and rigorous training from Hiashi, Hanabi gradually became very proficient in the Gentle Fist. In the anime, during a duel with Boruto, she showed considerable grace and precision, able to effortlessly dodge and parry all of his attacks used alongside his shadow clones. In the anime, she could perform several of her clan’s advanced hiden techniques, able to block or repel anything in her immediate vicinity the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, or attack a target from a distance using the Eight Trigrams Vaccum Palm.

Byakugan

As a Hyuga, Hanabi possesses the Byakugan, a dojutsu kekkei genkai. While a common trait for her clan, Hanabi’s is noted by her father to be very powerful, almost as great as her cousin Neji’s. Hanabi herself is also very confident about her Byakugan, claiming that its perception is as good as any fully grown Hyuga’s. Toneri Otsutsuki described her Byakugan as being “very pure” and specifically targeted her Byakugan in order to awaken the Tenseigan. When activated, it grants her an almost 360 degrees field of vision (except for a small blind spot), x-ray vision, and the ability to see chakra accurate enough to target the chakra pathway system.

New Era

Academy Arc

In the anime, when Naruto along with Boruto and Himawari visit the Hyuga estate, Hanabi greets them at the gate, first chastising her father for fawning over his grandchildren in such an ignominious way before she herself rushes to them and begins fawning over them. As Naruto, Boruto and her father meet, Hanabi plays in the courtyard with Himawari. As Boruto claims to have manifested his Byakugan, it was decided to test the theory. Hiashi insisted on a sparring match with him for the speculated Byakugan to show itself. However, out of concern for her father’s bad back and her nephew’s well-being due to Hiashi’s lack of restraint, Hanabi insisted that she would spar Boruto instead.

While Boruto eagerly accepted, the dojutsu did not manifest during the match, leading the others to conclude that Boruto has not yet awakened the Byakugan. Afterwards, it was decided for Naruto and his children to spend the night at the estate, leading Hanabi to eagerly cook a meal for everyone. Later, finding her nephew pouting, Hanabi comforted him, encouraging him to keep working hard and to take comfort in having her to come to for help if things got too difficult.

Trivia

• “Hanabi” means “fireworks”
• The English voice actress for Hanabi, Colleen Villard, shares the same voice with Ino Yamanaka