Heath Hasekura

**Heath Hasekura** (支倉 ヒース, *Hasekura Heath*) is one of the heroes of the series. He is a third year student at Honan Academy and the stride club's captain/runner.

## Appearance

Heath is a tall young man with a muscular figure and shoulder length brown hair that are are spiked at the ends, green eyes and he has a mole under his left eye.

He usually has his hair held up with a black headband, but when let down his bangs are styled above his right eye.

He wears a white jersey (with a thick blue and thin red line running across the shoulders until the elbows and Honan Academy's emblem on the left) with a dark green undershirt underneath. He wears it with brown shorts and brown-orange running shoes.

His school uniform consists of the black school gakuen which contains both jacket and pants, that has a green t-shirt underneath. He wears the black pants, with both legs rolled up to his knees, and a pair of green and black sneakers.

## Personality

Heath is full of manly spirit and is a person with a dependable aura.

## Background

Heath is a half-blood with a British mother and a Japanese father and he has two older sisters; Diane Hasekura is Founder/President of the international fashion company D's and Shauna Hasekura is a model for her company. Heath has also modeled a few times, although against his will, but it has become a requirement for all members to model in order to gain her sponsorship, with Heath effectively being managed by Diane as a part-time model.

## Skills

As a runner, he has great cardiovascular fitness, and can run over the longest distance He has average parkour skills (but in the anime, he would take outrageous risks by the semi finals to leap down from 10m to pass Tasuku Senoo from above). He also is the most able to run on slopes. Due to his build, he can't get bumped off easily when competitors tries to bump and grind alongside him. Because Senoo specializes in the same areas, they often match up against each other. He also has trouble beating blocks by Arata Samejima, who was the best blocker last year, and thus far in the tour. He also has improved his mental game vastly in the anime, having gained composure through match experience, and seeing through Nana biting on Shiki Dozono's bluff to complete a perfect relation to Kyosuke Kuga and retook the lead for Honan, and again fighting off his ankle injury to leap right off the top railway tracks down 10m to beat Senoo from above.

## Likes and Dislikes

### Likes

* Tom-Yam Kong, salmon roe, afternoon naps and watching movies.

### Dislikes

* Despite being able recall Japanese idioms, having been taught by Yujiro Dan, he hates studying.
	+ He hates it so much, he joined Riku Yagami in singing tunes after the exams are over in **Episode 7**.
* Hot summer, so he prefers northern Japan during summer.

## Etymology

* The name **Heath** means "someone who lived at, on, or by, a moor or **heath**" in Old English.
* Heath's surname **Hasekura** means "branch, support, sustain, branch radical (no. 65)" (支) (**hase**) and "rice, paddy" (米) (**yone**) and "warehouse, storehouse, barn, treasury, granary, cellar, magazine, godown, depository, elevator, storage place, repository, supply shed, grain elevator, stockpile, arsenal" (倉) (**kura**).

## Trivia

* In the past, Heath, Kyosuke Kuga, and Tomoe Yagami were part of "Honan's Golden Trio" until an incident two years ago that resulted in its disbanding.
	+ It is also revealed that he is the weakest of the trio.
* Heath didn't feel practice was necessary since the club doesn't have enough members to even race, and thus was de-registered by the Japanese Stride Association (JSA). He later regains hope when Nana Sakurai, Riku Yagami, and Takeru Fujiwara join the Stride club. He manages to convince Kuga to come back, as well, and thanks Nana for restoring his hope.