Hinata Wakaba

**Hinata Wakaba** is a character from Rival Schools. She alongside Batsu- who's also from Rival Schools- fought Rock Howard and Hotaru Futaba from Fatal Fury in episode 0 of Season 3 of Mini Rumble.

## Description

Hinata is a light-hearted, cheery, smart girl who excels in a variety of sports and loves to sing and dance. She's also incredibly proficient at hand-to-hand fighting and some say she's comparable to those who compete at the national level. Hinata is also very curious and can hardly keep still when something catches her interest. She can be a bit of a smart-aleck at times due to her winning spirit, but otherwise, she's a fairly typical schoolgirl. She is close friends with Sakura and Natsu Ayuhara, and they were all friends since childhood.

Before Batsu transferred to Taiyo High, the school was oppressed. Hinata wanted her schoolmates to fight alongside her, but nobody had the courage to do so... until Batsu arrived, who was on a mission to find his missing mother. Batsu didn't want Hinata to join him at first, but she finally convinced him that she could help him. Her efforts eventually lead to Batsu finding his mother. Additionally, news of her cooperation with Batsu inspired many students to take up martial arts, which pleasantly surprised her.

In *Project Justice*, Hinata again joins Batsu and Kyosuke Kagami in investigating the new threat to the schools. Her fate in the Taiyo High story is one of two outcomes. In one story, Hinata is kidnapped by Kurow and was later saved by Pacific High School students. In the other, she leads Taiyo's investigation in Batsu's absence and is later saved by him when attacked by Kurow.

## Trivia

* The following details on Hinata's life is as described.
	+ She lives with her parents and older sister Asaka, who is a college student. The school Asaka attends has never been disclosed to this day.
	+ Talent-wise, Hinata loves to sing and dance.
	+ She is good at Japanese language, physical education, and social studies; but fares poorly in calligraphy.
	+ Hinata may be known for her national-level proficiency in martial arts, but her real skill is in *origami*, the Japanese art of paper folding.
	+ Hinata does not belong to any club in their school, but many people ask for her help in various clubs.
	+ Hinata is close friends with Sakura Kasugano of *Street Fighter* , and Natsu Ayuhara. They were all friends since childhood. Although she knows Sakura's best friend Kei (pictured in the gallery below), Hinata doesn't know her as well as Sakura.

* Ibuki's school uniform from her *Street Fighter III: New Generation* ending was well-liked by Capcom producer Hideaki Itsuno that he used the same design for Hinata's uniform.

* Her official epithet is "Whirlwind School Girl".

* The kanji for her last name is sometimes misread as **Wakabi**. But during the production of the US version of *United by Fate*, her name was initially misread as **Wakana**. This error was corrected in *Project Justice*. The reason for the reading error is that the Kanji for her last name can be read either as *Wakana* or *Wakaba*; either is correct.

* She is voiced by Tomoe Hanba.

* Hinata mastered martial arts from Ken Masters' online fighting school.