Shōyō Hinata (Japanese: 日向 翔陽 Hinata Shōyō) is the main protagonist of the Haikyū!! series by Haruichi Furudate. Hinata was motivated to begin playing volleyball when he witnessed a Karasuno High volleyball player nicknamed the Little Giant scoring points against opponents far bigger than him. After losing his first and only official volleyball match in middle school against Tobio Kageyama, the "King of the Court", Hinata enrolled at Karasuno High, only to find that Kageyama had also chosen to come to Karasuno. For the majority of the series, Hinata was a first-year student at Karasuno and one of the volleyball team's middle blockers. After graduating from high school, he traveled to Brazil to train using beach volleyball for two years. Upon returning to Japan, he became a member of the MSBY Black Jackals, a Division 1 team in the V-League.
Upon entering the first year of high school, Hinata stood at 162.8 cm and grew to 164.2 cm halfway through the school year. He is the second shortest person on his team, next to Nishinoya (although this height is fairly average for a male Japanese High School student). He has unruly, orange hair and brown eyes. His relatively thin build and short stature often lead him to be mistaken for a junior high (or in some cases even grade school) student. Hinata typically dresses in his Karasuno school uniform with a black jacket and black pants. Beneath his jacket is a beige or tan sweatshirt. In the first episode, he wore the green volleyball uniform from his junior high.