Hinata Okano

Hinata Okano is a student in class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High School, taught by Korosensei.

Appearance
Hinata has short brown hair and brown eyes (light purple in the anime). Her hair is the shortest among all the girls in Class 3-E.

Personality
In her initial appearances, Okano was often shown to be serious with a relatively neutral expression. As the series goes on, she's later shown to also be playful in addition to being serious.

Etymology
Okano (岡野) Oka (岡) means "hill" or "rising ground" and No (野) means "field." "Okano" is also the surname of one of the 47 ronin of feudal Japan.

Hinata (ひなた) is a unisex name meaning "sunflower" or "facing the sun."

Plot
Like her classmates, Okano was introduced in Chapter 1 however, unlike many of her classmates, Okano has yet to be properly introduced. Instead she has steadily been gaining more and more appearances as the series goes on with her first being in Chapter 24 when she was shown handing a towel to Maehara after he had been kicked to the ground by Tomoya Seo. This introduced her as one of the more serious characters of Class E. Her more playful side was highlighted in Chapter 86 when she was shown smiling when telling one of Shiro's men that she was still frustrated from the game of Cops and Robbers back in Chapter 81 and Chapter 82 and proceeded to take him out.

Okano finally receives the spotlight alongside Maehara in Chapter 158. The day before Valentines' Day, Okano accompanied Maehara after school. She had planned to give her chocolate early to avoid any embarrassment on the actual day but kept on hesitating until Maehara suddenly asked her to do karaoke with him. Okano happily accepted but was unaware that Maehara detected Korosensei spying on the two. After a while in a karaoke club, Okano planned to give her chocolate to Maehara. But the pair were then interrupted by Korosensei bursting in and being caught unaware by some of the students who answered Maehara's call. Having not been told of the plan, Okano throws her chocolate to Maehara and kicked him in the face before leaving in emotional anger. Okano spent the next day rebuffing Maehara's reconciliation attempts, still mad from the events of the previous night. At one point she even knocked out Nagisa who attempted to mediate the situation. Eventually Maehara outwits Okano by intentionally making her mad again and get her to kick him, having earlier replaced the hidden blade in her shoe with chocolate. Maehara admitted however that he would not have been in sync with her song choices at karaoke if he did not fancy her, briefly silencing Okano before getting violent once more.

Abilities
Knifework: Okano excels in knifework and is considered one of the two best out of all the girls in Class 3-E. She was scored joint 4th in the class (along with Masayoshi Kimura, Megu Kataoka and Taiga Okajima) for Knife training from April to June.

Agility: Okano has been noted for her agility which is attributed to her being a former member of the school's gymnastics club. She is one of, if not the most, physically agile student of Class E which she attributes to her fighting making her excel in close-range combat.

Megu Kataoka
Her closest friend in Class E, they often spend time together when out of school. Both of them are insecure about their own femininity and will spend time researching and figuring out what exactly it means to be "more feminine."

Kaede Kayano
It's possible that Okano and Kaede have a close friendship, or at least get along really well due to the fact that Okano refers to her as "Kayanochii." According to a relationship chart, the two of them bonded over their insecurities about their physical appearances.

Hiroto Maehara
Hiroto and Okano seem to have a good friendship and were paired up for Korosensei's Test of Courage and the Athletic Festival for the three-legged race. It has confirmed that she has romantic feelings for him, but she hasn't realised it, until proven in Chapter 158. Those close to her are able to see it, though.

Quotes

 * "I'm still frustrated from being hunted by Karasuma-sensei, so for this cops and robbers, you guys are the robbers, okay?"

Trivia

 * She was called "Amazing Monkey" in class 3-E training using code names. The one who wrote her codename was Maehara.
 * Her best subject is Physical Education, while her worst one is English.
 * Her profile notes her personality to be "brash and clumsy".
 * Her past club before joining Class E was the Gymnastics club.
 * Her hobby is to easily complete Karasuma's training lessons.
 * Her most treasured possessions are Wrestling DVD.
 * She's jealous of Kanzaki, and because of it, they don't get along.
 * During the Civil War, she and Kimura were both eliminated after swinging into a net trap.
 * In the tankobon extras, her statistics were listed as:
 * Physical strength: 4
 * Mobility: 5
 * Close-range assassination: 4
 * Long-range assassination: 1.5
 * Academic ability: 2
 * Characteristic skill: 4.5 (four-directional attacks)