Name: Hinako Ninomiya
Age: 20-30
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
First Appearance (Anime): Like Water For Ranma
First Appearance (Manga): Vol. 25 (Japanese)
Love Interest: Soun
Loved by: None
Rivals/Opponents: Ranma
Profile: Hinako Ninomiya is a schoolteacher at Furinkan High who teaches English. She is also the homeroom teacher of Ranma, Akane, Ukyou, and Gosunkugi. Hinako has two forms - one in which she looks and acts like a child, and the other (which happens after she drains someone's battle aura) in whcih she looks and acts like a full grown (and well-built) woman.
Hinako came to Furinkan as the result of the plans of Principal Kunou, who desperately wanted to keep the students in line. The Principal hired Hinako and put her in Rnama's calss, hoping that her reputation for disciplining other schools would succeed at Furinkan. At first, Ranma and the other are in disbelief when they find out that their new teacher (and disciplinarian) looks like a small child - however, that is proven wrong soon enough. During one of Happosai's typical underwear raids of the high school locker rooms, Hinako, despite Ranma's warnings about staying away from the perverted old man, is able to defeat Happosai by the use of her primary technique (Happo X Yen Satsu, X being the value of the yen coin she is using) of draining battle aura and chi from her opponent with the use of different types of circular objects, mostly yen coins. This not only completely makes Happosai helpless, but also makes Hinako look and act very differently from her child form - much to the high school body's surprise, Hinako turns into a full grown adult woman after draining Happosai.
In an effort to learn this deadly technique, Ranma attempts to sweet talk Hinako into giving him the secret of the technique. However, this only succeeds in annoying Ukyou, Shampoo, and Kodachi, who are all angry that Ranma is supposedly attempting to go after another girl. The three girls all end up trying to ambush Hinako at once, which promptly fails as the three are quickly drained by Hiinako's technique.
Meanwhile, a weakened Happosai tells Ranma that he has no chance of learning the drainage technique from Hinako. As everyone finds out later, it is Happosai who actually taught Hinako the technique when she was very young (and a child with very frail stamina and constitution). Through a combination of daily pressure points and practice, Happosai was able to give Hinako the innate power of draining others' battle aura, something that everyone puts out unconsciously or consciously when fighting. Originally, he had done this to have Hinako unknowingly help Happosai on his panty raids on the hospital Hinako was staying in, but now Happosai realizes that he had done a potentially dangerous deed in giving Hinako so much power. He implores Ranma that he must hit Hinako on certain pressure points on her body in order to cancel out her powers, with the motivation that Hinako's powers threaten martial artists everywhere.
A frustrated male Ranma then tries to get to Hinako's pressure points, but is only successful in making everyone including Hinako think he's a rabid pervert (the pressure points are in very compromising places, with three on the chest and two on the lower back). Eventually, Ranma is forced to become female in order to try to defeat Hinako, but even this doesn't work as most of her attacks are either deflected or drained by Hinako. Eventually as a male, Ranma is able to defeat Hinako by tricking her into turning into an adult while at the same time trapping her within the circular object she was using to drain Ranma (the basketball hoop). Unfortunately, Ranma gives up on trying to permanently diable Hinako, since Happosai then says that he must repeat this procedure of the pressure points every day for a month.
Later on, Hinako falls in love with Soun, and though Soun respects Hinako as a teacher (and thinks she's one of Akane's friends when she's in child form), he can't seem to shake the memory of his long lost wife who was deceased so long ago. Hinako seems to give up in the wake of this, but secretly still pursues Soun in an effort to marry him.
Personality: Hinako's personality changes depending on her form. In her child form, she acts mostly like a small child would - she talks in a high-pitched voice, has child-like needs and wants, and acts very childish and immature, although she still somehow manages to take her job as disciplinarian and teacher seriously while in this form. In her Adult form, Hinako acts like a refined adult woman, and is mroe effective in her teaching methods. She can be gentle, but as an adult may also seem to have more of a cruel/mean streak about her because of her accelerated mind. Hinako is also obsessed with enforcing discipline and justice and Furinkan, and will do so at the drop of a hat if she feels someone is being a deliquent. Her primary target in this disciplining has been Ranma, who she wishes to take care of so that everyone else will fall in line.
⌐ 1998 by Frank Sanchez