Hinako Ninomiya (
Biography[]
History[]
As a young child, Hinako was very sickly, to the point she was confined at a children's hospital. Happosai happened to visit this hospital as part of his endless pursuit of women's lingerie and pantyhose, stumbled upon Hinako, and took pity on her. He "helped" her by manipulating her pressure points, changing her metabolism so she could absorb the auras of other people to increase her health. However, his motive for doing this was at least partially so that he could trick her into absorbing the battle auras of the enraged nurses whose panties he stole, allowing him to make a clean getaway.
Happosai's "healing" regimen did ultimately cure Hinako of her affliction, allowing her to live a normal life. However, the alterations had a permanent side effect on her, causing her to stay child-like in both appearance and personality.
Plot[]
She is a teacher hired by Principal Kuno for the purpose of disciplining Furinkan's many delinquent students, particularly Ranma Saotome, as she has a reputation for being quite the successful reformer. This status causes a bit of a surprise when she shows up as a young girl. Her reputation, however, is shown to be justified when she reveals her ability to absorb a person's battle aura, rendering them incapable of fighting back. After absorbing it, she instantly grows into a voluptuous young woman and is then capable of firing it back at opponents as a large ball of energy. She reverts to her child form upon doing so.
The battle aura absorbing techniques she employs can be countered by simultaneously hitting five pressure points on her body: two on her back, three on her chest. If this is done every day for one month, her powers will be canceled out permanently. The problem with the counter is that, due to the placement of her pressure points, the only way to hit them simultaneously is to grab the teacher's back with one's left hand while roughly groping her left breast with the right. This, of course, causes the attacker to look like a shameless pervert, as Ranma discovers as he tries to do so. He later abandons his efforts after he learns that he must repeat the procedure every day for a whole month before it will permanently depower her.
Later on, Hinako falls in love with Soun Tendo, due to the kindly way he treated her while she was in her young girl form. However, Akane, Nabiki, and Ranma were firmly dedicated against her turning into a substitute mother, even Kasumi eventually opted against her, and Soun was knocked out before he could hear her proposal. Though Soun respects her dedication as a teacher, treats her courteously, and even admits that he finds her attractive, he can't seem to shake the memory of his late wife. While Hinako claimed that she gave up in the wake of this, she still secretly pursues Soun in an effort to marry him, and has been seen with a Tanabata bamboo charm, where she wished for fun, manga, toys, and that she and Soun would be together.
Appearance[]
Hinako's adult form as a tall, curvy woman is what she would likely have looked like had she not been sickly as a child, although her child form is more reflective of her true emotional and psychological age. In both forms, she has long dark hair (medium brown in the anime) and wears clothing that allows her to alternate between forms, although when she transforms into an adult it becomes form-fitting which accentuate her curves.
Personality[]
Hinako's personality is as variable as her form, shifting between two very different states. In her child form, she acts mostly like a small child would. She talks in a high-pitched voice, craves ice cream and similar junk foods, watches anime on TV (Doraemon is her favorite), and generally acts very scatterbrained, childish, and immature. Despite this, she still has a strong commitment to being a teacher and feels very responsible for her students.
In her adult form, Hinako acts like an elegant, confident, and somewhat vain adult woman, and is more effective in her disciplining methods because of her forceful personality, gorgeous figure, and her tendency to drain and blast people who disobey her. While she is mainly well-intentioned and righteous, and can be gentle, she also seems to have a more vindictive side as an adult, actually enjoying the punishment that she deals out. Her adult form is also quite sensuous and sexual, in appearance. Because of this, Hinako is not afraid to use it to her advantage to take control of the situation when dealing with male delinquents. However, she retains some of her childish traits.
In either form, she enjoys sweets, attractions, toys, and video games, eats like a slob, and doesn't properly take care of her apartment. Hinako is quite forgetful, even overlooking to bring her wallet into a restaurant or getting side-tracked from her original reason to visit the Tendo household once she became enamoured with Soun. She can sometimes lack good judgment, once deciding to help Akane learn to swim without knowing the basics herself. She is also quite weak for what she perceives as very manly and upright grown men who are kind to her. The longer a period she stays in an adult state, the more her energetic and irrational childish personality makes itself known.
Hinako is obsessed with enforcing discipline and justice at Furinkan, and she will do so, at any moment, if she feels someone is being a delinquent. Her primary target in this endeavor has been Ranma, whom she wishes to take care of so that everyone else will fall in line. Even so, her dedication to teaching also means she wants him to succeed in her classes, and has made an effort to help him with his studies. They did also team up against Principal Kuno after his abusive methods of discipline made him seem like a delinquent to her.
Abilities[]
Hinako is able to both absorb chi from her opponents, through any object with a circular hole as a focus, as well as shoot it back at them as a charged attack. She effectively matures into an adult whenever she absorbs chi, but reverts back to her child form when she fires it off. Although Hinako has displayed no particular regular combat skills, her unique ability renders potential opponents incapable of fighting back at all, if she successfully catches them. While she requires a focusing source in order to successfully utilize her skill, Hinako is one of the most dangerous fighters around when one is available to her. Her two weaknesses being her considerable, but comparatively lacking speed, and susceptibility to being disarmed, but she can think on her feet and improvise if necessary. Another limitation is that her ability to sense battle aura hasn't been deliberately trained, and is more intuitive than a honed skill. This means that in certain situations, her chi-sensing abilities can be blocked. The most obvious example of this is during her introductory arc when she is enticed to join in the female students' basketball game by the vengeful trio of Kodachi Kuno, Ukyo Kuonji and Shampoo. As they predict, she cannot distinguish their hostility-charged battle auras from the competitive auras emitted by the players all around them, which they use in an attempt to ambush her. Given Hinako's lack of actual martial arts training, swifter opponents, such as Shampoo, Ukyo, and Kodachi, have also proven able to effortlessly disarm her.
One drawback to Hinako's powers is that it is possible for her personality to be severely affected/compelled after she absorbs sufficiently large quantities of "sentiment-imprinted" aura. This is the focus of one of her story-arcs, where after accidentally absorbing a vast amount of resentful chi imprinted in a bust of Principal Kuno by the students of Furinkan High forced to kowtow to it, Hinako became overwhelmed with resentful delinquency and went on a rampage, unable to stop until she was able to beat up Principal Kuno.[1]
Happosai taught Hinako her unusual techniques while she was a sickly young girl in the hospital, claiming they were a specialized form of health exercise, but also used her to help in his panty raids. He is personally wary of these techniques, and her draining even managed to defeat the ancient lech through advantage of surprise, but the latter didn't use his superior speed to his advantage, and generally avoids defending himself against women. Despite his massive perversion, his arms are also too short to simultaneously hit all of the five pressure points required to neutralize Hinako's ability for a day. This then has to be repeated every day for a month to cancel it out permanently.
Hinako refers to her chi-manipulation techniques as "Good Girl Exercises" and "the ultimate secret technique of Anything Goes Martial Arts". She names her techniques after coins, as coins are readily available focuses for her power; each draining technique needs a circular object to act as a lens with which to pull the chi from her opponent. However, she can actually use any circular opening as a focus -- however, the opening must be circular. For example, in one story arc, she places two male Siamese fighting fish into a fish bowl to provide herself with limitless battle aura to feed upon so she can stay in her adult form permanently; Ranma defeats her by placing the fish in a square fish tank, rendering it impossible for her to absorb the chi. Likewise, if somebody fighting her can block the coin hole she is using with a pen or a fingertip, then she cannot drain them.
Her specific techniques are:
- Happōgoensatsu (八宝五円殺 Happō Five-Yen Satsu) Hinako uses a five-yen coin to absorb chi that is already manifest, usually an opponent's battle aura. With the five-yen coin, she cannot absorb chi from someone who is not emitting any battle aura. In Viz Media's English translation of the manga, this technique is referred to as the Eight Treasures of the Deadly Five-Yen Piece technique.
- Happōgojūensatsu (八宝五十円殺 Happō Fifty-Yen Satsu) Using a larger fifty-yen coin, Hinako can absorb chi even if her opponent does not manifest a battle aura. In Viz Media's English translation of the manga, this technique is referred to as the Eight Treasures of the Deadly Fifty-Yen Piece technique.
- Happo Basket-Hoop Satsu Hinako uses this attack when she is confronted on a basketball court and is unable to use her coins, instead using a basketball goal hoop as her focus. In Viz Media's English translation of the manga, this technique is referred to as the Eight Treasures of the Deadly Goal Hoop technique.
- Happōtsurisengaeshi (八宝釣銭返し Happō No-Yen Coin Return) Hinako releases all of her stored chi in a large blast. While it is quite deadly, this attack can usually only be performed once since it effectively drains all of the chi that Hinako has absorbed, returning her to her normal child form. However, she is able to stay in her adult form if she has enough energy. For instance, the vengeful chi of Furinkan students once supercharged her, so she was capable of firing off multiple blasts[2]. She also had a fish bowl containing two Siamese fighting fish that constantly gave off enormous amounts of battle aura so that she could remain in adult form as she fought[3]. In Viz Media's English translation of the manga, this technique is referred to as the Eight Treasures Change Return technique.
Relationships[]
In general, Hinako is regarded by her students at Furinkan High School with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. In her child form, she is generally seen as the unofficial kid sister of her students; while her tendency to pilfer manga, toys and food from her students to play with (or eat) herself can annoy them, they appreciate that she tends to be more focused on goofing off than on actually teaching them, and generally will let them get away with a lot so long as they don't anger her. When she does assume her adult form, she becomes an immediate object of lust for the male students. She's formally introduced as the new homeroom teacher for Class 1-F in both the manga and the Stormy Weather Comes to School! Growing Up With Miss Hinako OVA.
Happosai: Although it was Happosai who made Hinako well and transformed her into the child-bodied chi vampire she is now, she doesn't remember the old pervert and certainly doesn't recognize him. She bears no fondness for him, and will attack him with her aura draining techniques should she catch him committing his usual panty raids and groping assaults at Furinkan High. Being too short to hit the nullifying pressure points himself, and unable to resist her attacks, Happosai seems to regard Hinako with a genuine sense of fear, and does his best to avoid her as the one opponent that even he cannot defeat. He initially tries to manipulate Ranma into opposing Hinako, but after Ranma gives up on his quest to permanently nullify her chi-sucking powers after learning it would take a month of constant pressure point touches, he seems to resign himself to just avoiding her.
Principal Kuno: It was the Principal who hired Hinako as a living weapon in his eternal quest to squash the rebellious defiance of Ranma Saotome (and, to a lesser extent, Akane Tendo). He was rather disappointed to learn that Hinako was apparently a child prodigy, having not done his research on her. The two have a decent professional working relationship, and Hinako does often act as the principal's enforcer, but his chaotic antics and tyrannical displays sometimes result in even her turning on him.
Ranma Saotome: Hinako was recruited to work at Furinkan High School specifically because Principal Kuno hoped that she would squash Ranma's constant defiance of the Principal's more tyrannical rule. With Ranma having likewise goaded into believing that Hinako was a threat to the Anything Goes School that had to be stopped at all cost, the two initially clashed ferociously. After Happosai true selfish intentions for their battle was discovered, Ranma gave up on trying to permanently nullify Hinako's chi-draining ability. The two have a relationship best described as adversarial, but not necessarily hostile; Hinako does genuinely want Ranma to do better at school, and to be a more well-behaved student, and tries to push him to behave better. This sometimes leads to the two clashing. But they do not personally dislike each other, and in fact Ranma has even played with Hinako. One could even consider them to be friends to a degree.
Akane Tendo: Hinako's relationship with Akane is similar to the one she has with Ranma, but is much more openly cordial due to Akane tending to be the more traditionally "good student" of the two. Akane is not pleased by Hinako's crush on her father, but doesn't dislike the teacher as a person.
Soun Tendo: Hinako becomes infatuated with Soun upon first meeting him as part of a planned series of parent/teacher interviews. She desperately yearns for his affections and speaks openly of wanting to marry him, but sadly for her, Soun is utterly loyal to the memory of his deceased wife and seems barely aware of her infatuation.
Ukyo Kuonji: Initially, Ukyo is quite hostile to Hinako, believing her to be intent on seducing Ranma. She allies herself with Shampoo and Kodachi Kuno, Ranma's other would-be fiancées, and seeks to beat Hinako into submission so badly that she will be intimidated into leaving Ranma alone. This gets them all severely drained by Hinako after she catches on to their ploy, and it is only Ranma's intervention that saves them from her wrath. After establishing that Hinako was never interested in Ranma, and that likewise Ranma's only interest in her was attempting to nullify her ability to absorb chi, Ukyo loses her hostility towards Hinako. The two rarely interact outside of the student/teacher interplay, and thus Ukyo is regarded as simply another student in Hinako's class.
Quotes[]
"Um...scuse me? Can you take me to the principal's office?
- Hinako's very first line of dialogue in the manga.
"I'm the new homeroom teacher for First Year, Class F. Hinako Ninomiya."
- Hinako introducing herself to Principal Kuno in the manga.
"I am a very strict teacher! If you're a bad little boy or girl, you'll get in big trouble!"
- Hinako introducing herself to her students for the first time in the manga.
"I'm Hinako Ninomiya! All you bad kids better watch out!"
- Hinako introducing herself to her students for the first time in the OVA.
"Good girl exercise #1! Aku Ja Byo Tsu Ma!"
- Hinako's chant prior to using the Happōgoensatsu.
"Good morning, my good little children!"
- Hinako's preferred introduction to her class for the morning.
Non-canon Appearances[]
Hinako is a playable character in the Japanese Super Famicom game Ranma ½: Chougi Rambuhen.
Trivia[]
- The first part of her name, "Hina", means "young bird", while "ko" is a common feminine name ending, usually meaning "child", from the word kodomo. "Ninomiya" is broken down into "two princesses," which is a reference to her adult and child forms.
- In her first animated appearance, Hinako's child form looks like she is about 10 years old, while in OVA 12, Hinako's child form looks more like a pre-schooler.
- In the anime, when Hinako transforms, her clothes seem to turn a darker shade of yellow.
- Her English voice actress would provide the voice of Akemi Roppongi in Maison Ikkoku, Kagura and Kanna in InuYasha, Misa in Mermaid's Scar (OVA).
- Janyse Jaud also voices Hiroko.
- It's unclear what age Hinako is supposed to appear to be when she is in her child-form. The art style and most of her behavior suggests that Hinako is roughly middle-school aged in her juvenile state. This is further emphasized by how she goes from completely flat and sexless to a curvaceous adult when she transforms. However, when she first arrives at Furinkan High in the manga, students who see her wonder if she's supposed to be a transfer student, suggesting her appearance may be closer to a 15-16 year old. Likewise, when he first meets Hinako, Soun Tendo mistakes her for one of "Akane's little friends", which could also be read as suggesting that she has a teenager-like appearance. These references are present in the original Japanese, so they are clearly not a case of mistaken translation.
- Hinako's connection to Happosai is foreshadowed in her introductory arc both by her describing her Happōgoensatsu as an Anything-Goes secret technique, and the fact that she consistently names all of her techniques with the prefix "Happō". This is obviously a reference to Happōsai's name, and Happōsai also displays a tendency to name his favorite techniques partially after himself, such as the Happōdaikarin ("Happō Fire Burst"). And, of course, Happosai is the founder and grandmaster of Anything-Goes Martial Arts.
- In Viz Media's English translation of the manga, the word "Happō" is instead translated as "Eight Treasures", which is the literal meaning of the first half of Happōsai's name. This serves to slightly obscure the ultimate reveal of Hinako's connection to the old pervert.
- In her introductory arc, Hinako likes to build up to using her techniques by announcing "Good child exercise (number)", before tracing a semi-circle with the coin held between her index and middle fingers, chanting the phrase "Aku Ja Byo Tsu Ma!", which means "Weakening of the Evil Spirit". This doesn't seem to be necessary to perform the technique, as she has been seen using her Happo Satsus whilst only calling the technique's name.
- In the OVA Stormy Weather Comes to School! Growing Up With Miss Hinako, Hinako's chant is changed to Ja Aku Byo Tsu Ma for unknown reasons.
- The English subtitles in the Stormy Weather Comes to School! Growing Up With Miss Hinako OVA also translate each word of her pre-attack chant individually, creating the chant "Malice! Evil! Illness! Pain! Magic!"
Media Appearances[]
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