Basic Trope: The standard hero of a Shounen work — a Hot-Blooded, incredibly persisting, Book Dumb Kid Hero who relies on The Power of Friendship.
- Straight: In a world where young men strive to be the best martial artist, Hiro starts out a friendless, Book Dumb underdog. However, he does have prodigious talent, and a cheerful, friendly personality that gradually draws friends and allies to his side. When faced with a stronger opponent, Hiro relies on his past and friends to fuel his determination (of which he already has an absurd amount to begin with) and win. Hiro also has spiky red hair and his attacks are fire-themed.
- Exaggerated: Hiro is a Flanderization of a Shonen hero, being dumber than a brick, too determined for his own good, and relying on his friends to get anything done at all. He somehow manages to win flawlessly every episode despite all logic.
- Downplayed: Although Hiro displays Hot-Blooded and Idiot Hero tendencies, these come out largely in moments of stress. Normally, he is more subdued.
- Justified:
- The Prophecy reads that it's a hot-tempered, friendly fool who'll be the next top martial artist.
- The protagonist wants to bring the best out of everyone with his personality.
- Inverted:
- Hiro is a privileged, timid, intellectual young boy who is a loner for much of the series.
- Hiro is a Byronic Hero.
- Subverted:
- Hiro is the main character...for the first episode. The rest of the series follows his much more introverted, intelligent, and normally powered brother trying to keep up with him.
- Hiro's strong, gung-ho personality is a facade. Beneath the Mask he's much more lowkey.
- Double Subverted:
- After a couple of arcs' worth of Character Development, Hiro's brother starts to mirror him in personality.
- After he deals with his issues, Hiro's 'true' personality is close to the straight example.
- Parodied:
- Hiro is all of the aforementioned 'straight' traits... in a non-shounen work. The other characters consider him a loud and idiotic weirdo.
- The only reason Hiro is The Chosen One is because he's so goofy that none of his enemies will expect anything of him.
- Zig-Zagged: Hiro is depicted like this in the show's first season, but after several seasons of Character Development, many of these traits are no longer constantly shown, but they tend to come roaring back whenever Hiro is too stressed out/excited to maintain self-control.
- Averted: There's no singular main character, and if there is, he doesn't fit that mold.
- Enforced: Hiro was initially more intellectual and introverted, but the editors don't think he'll be a hit with the target audience, who are more used to boisterous protagonists. Hiro is then retooled to align with his shounen contemporaries.
- Lampshaded: Upon seeing how he acts, everyone starts wondering if Hiro has been reading Shonen Jump a little too much.
- Implied: In a group shot, Hiro stands out because he's the guy with the weird hair color and massive grin on his face that has no reason to exist, all things considered.
- Invoked: Hiro intentionally patterns his boisterous and determined personality after In-Universe manga and video game heroes.
- Exploited: It turns out Hiro has been an Unwitting Pawn for the Big Bad because the latter realized that Hiro's unique abilities combined with his recklessness and lack of smarts would make him the perfect tool for pushing the evil agenda forward.
- Defied: Hiro isn't a fan of the Hot-Blooded Book Dumb heroes of his In-Universe manga and video games, so he deliberately tries to be (comparatively) more intelligent and aloof.
- Discussed: "Hiro is just like all the other main characters in shounen manga, isn't he?"
- Conversed: "How come shounen heroes are all similar flavors of Hot-Blooded and The Power of Friendship?"
- Deconstructed:
- Hiro's relentlessly positive attitude and his reliance on his compatriots turn out to be unhealthy coping mechanisms for the traumatic experiences he faces, and he later breaks.
- Hiro's Hot-Blooded personality and fixation on becoming the best in his chosen field has made him a Blood Knight with a ruthless attitude towards his opponents (or, occasionally worse yet, an utter disregard for such little common-sense things as risking the lives of everybody else in the cast/the world for the sake of a fulfilling fight).
- Hiro's optimism and absolute refusal to give up against overwhelming odds does not make up for his lack of intelligence, skill, and experience, and he ends up meeting a violent death at the hands of a more powerful enemy.
- Reconstructed:
- After an extensive Mental Health Recovery Arc getting therapy and using said "coping mechanisms" the way they really should have been, Hiro comes roaring back a little wiser but not really changed in personality.
- Hiro's status as The Determinator being channeled in the right areas, along with learning to plan ahead allows him to work hard enough to avert Hard Work Hardly Works and properly mature as both a fighter and a person.
- Fortunately for Hiro, he lives in a universe where it is possible to Come Back Strong and it's his boons that are key for that to happen. Once he does, his new power level proves to be a perfect equalizer to deal with the one who killed him. And he's got attitude to spare and use this tactic a lot.
- Hiro eventually gets a What the Hell, Hero? speech from his friends which makes him decide to cut back on the ruthlessness and "combat for combat's sake" obsession, but not so much on the hot-bloodedness, with his friends becoming his "handlers" just in case.
- In a world that has become so dreary and the opposing force has become so powerful that the only option that remains seems to be just lay down and die, Hiro is a very bright light in a field of darkness, giving the rest of the cast (and the audience) the strength to carry on.
- Played For Laughs: Hiro's lack of smarts and overly peppy attitude mean that, outside of combat situations where he definitely comes in handy, most of his scenes have an underlying "ha, ha, look at the dumb@$$" feeling to them, In-Universe and out.
- Played For Drama: Hiro's shonen-hero wants and needs completely clash with everybody else's in moments that are as realistic as they are heartbreaking - such as Alice screaming at Hiro in tears that the food he just ate in two seconds was her groceries for a whole month (and she had to break her back for the money to cover the part of their price she couldn't reduce with food stamps) and how the maniac Hiro allowed to escape because he wanted him to become stronger just killed five police officers and everybody's heads are going to roll in the ensuing investigation.
- Played For Horror: Hiro's stupidity and impulsiveness are Grey's Law incarnate - the death and destruction that has been caused as collateral damage of his impulsive, ill-thought-out decisions has become so extensive and gory that it no longer matters that it was not made out of malice.
Back to Stock Shōnen Hero.
