Minoru Kohinata

Minoru Kohinata Name Kanji Name 小日向海流 Kana Name Rōmaji Name Information Alias Origin Kamiiso District, Hokkaido, Japan Birthday March 29 Age 20 Gender Male Hair Color Blonde Eye Color Brown Height 173cm (Second Year) 169cm (First Year) Weight 70kg (Second Year) 62kg (First Year) Blood Type O Occupation Student Affiliation Reinan University School Club Second Karate Club Ninjutsu Club (Formerly) Gymnastics Club (Formerly) Fighting Style Family First Appearance Chapter 1

Kohinata Minoru is a college student at Reinan University, which is popular for its sports rather than academic orientation. He starts out as a gymnast alongside his friend, Misaki Nana, but is bullied by his gymnast seniors. One evening, a karate student at Reinan, Mutou Ryuuji, witnesses Minoru being bullied and comes to his rescue. Then Mutou attempts to change Minoru's passive behavior by dragging him into the world of karate. Minoru, joining the Second Karate Club (Kaburagi-ryu karate), makes new friends and learns some of their dark pasts, including a shocking death that reveals motives for revenge. His goal is to become strong and catch up to Mutou, Ibuki, and Samart. It's also to become a champion. He says if he's doing something he wants to be No.1 at it. His goal is similar to Satoru's.  

Appearance

Medium length Blond hair/ Baby-faced (because of this, Minoru comes off as attractive). Light-skinned. Muscle tone has grown since the year skip. Thin full length eyebrows.

Personality

Passive behavior at first. After being taken in by the 2nd Karate club, Minoru changes from an athlete to a fighter. Normally still passive, but once someone mocks/beats his friends his behavior changes from passive to agressive and  shows that he is ready to brawl. It can be said that he has been infected with Mutou's poison as Kohinata loves to fight as a way to improve his self. But he doesn't go around starting random fights as we first saw Mutou doing. Sometimes Minoru's aggressive behaviour can become his Achilles heel in some cases, as he may tend to not listen to fight plans and start fights with fighters stronger than him

Mutou once described Minoru as an idiot- a person who doesn't think about winning or losing in a fight. The same kind of idiot Satoru was supposed to be.  

Kohinata is too easy (nice) on people, some say it's his virtue as a human being. He is also shy and awkward when it come to dealing with the opposite sex.

Relationships

He is in love with Misaki Nana, and they promised to be together after her return from America.

Abilities

He has strong and flexible legs due to his time spent in gymnastics. He also has good and sensitive eyes. Even if something leaves his field of view for a moment, he has the ability to grasp and continue to intuitively imagine and perceive the targets in three dimensions. Which is why if Minoru's spinning techniques are big ones, their accuracy is abnormally high. He can also move his body exactly the way he imagines, without any need for practice.

Before the year hiatus, Kohinata desperately uses acrobatic attacks on his opponent. He has taken out many of opponents with those spinning techniques. After the year, his basic ability goes up and he becomes more of a well rounded fighter. He still tends to use acrobatic attacks in some of his pro fights, at the beginning of the fight to shake up the opponent and eliminate the maii, but he doesn't rely heavy on them and can sort through other attack modes.

One weakness Kohinata runs into is the strength of his fists. He is an absolute amateur when it comes to punching, because he doesn't often throw punches or get hit by them either. His solution to this is the makiwara. He hits the makiwara over 1,000 times (sometimes to 10,000) every day for more than a year. After that year, Minoru's punches hurt- like getting hit with a brick.

In preparation for his pro debut against the 2-time World Champion Gianni Skandalaki, Hamada steps in as his trainer and teaches him multiple techniques and tactics. He initially loses due to difference in technique, skill, and physique. It's said he can manage the lightweight class on a national level. But he is too light to take on Europeans or guys from Thailand, and so are his punches and kicks.

While training for the Genesis tournament, his punch variation gets stronger (confirmed by Takahashi Hayato- 2 time World Champion). While being trained by Hamda, his punches are stronger and have almost certainly grown by 10cm.

Plot

One day at the gymnastics hall, while watching Nana practice High Jump, Minoru was accidentally hit in the face, giving him multiple injuries to the mouth, and a bloody nose. Seeing the state of his face, Nana apologetically tries to help. Mutou Ryuuto, seeing the gym is still open long after school hours, decides to investigate. Suddenly, the Gymnastics team make their entrance into the gym, and upon finding Minoru and Nana, begin to beat up Minoru out of jealousy. Nana tries to protect Minoru, but instead is sexually assaulted. Minoru, seeing this, gets angry, and contrary to the expectations of Mutou, who was watching all along, kowtows. Mutou sees this and gets angry. Coming back from defeating the Judo club members, Mutou is still in possession of his mask. He quickly knocks out all of the gymnastics members, then proceeds to punch minoru, making him faint. Mutou picks him up and declares that Minoru is weak, so he will "Change" Minoru.

Minoru wakes up in the Dojo of the 2nd Karate Club, with a bandage on his nose and wearing a gi, much to his chagrin. He notices a man standing over him who introduces himself as the head of the Second Karate club, Minami Hiroko. Suddenly, Mutou arrives, still wearing his mask and scaring MInoru. Mutou takes off his mask and introduces himself, explaining the course of events after Minoru was knocked out and misunderstanding the relationslip between Minoru and Nana. Hiroko cuts in and asks him to join the Karate club, declaring that he has talent and the eyes of a fighter. Minoru accepts, much to Nana's anger later on in the day. She punches him and storms off. Suddenly Mutou comes out from behind, and tries to "comfort" him. He offers to make Minoru his apprentice so that Minoru can become as popular as him, with the Judo club members appearing. They ask about the Judo club being attacked, and Mutou laughs at them, saying that there are too little people to pose a threat to him. Suddenly, the OB of the Judo club and a yakuza, Tachiyama Yoshiaki appears. He decides to deal with Mutou himself and is able to mount Mutou, even though Mutou's first hit was able to knock out his front teeth. Mutou attempts to land a palm strike on Yoshiaki's ears, forcing Yoshiaki to stand up to avoid. Then he jabs Yoshiaki's throat. Again, Yoshiaki gets Mutou on the floor with an Arm Bar, but Mutou reads the lock and slams his elbow into Yoshiaki's face. Mutou lifts up his foot to squish Yoshiaki's balls, but misses on purpose and he and Minoru leave. The Judo members chase after him, but they are all beaten.

Trivia

• Minoru qualifies as the “Almighty Janitor” a character who is near the bottom of the scale in terms of rank, but is at the top in terms of what he can actually accomplish. Being a white belt and later progressing to a green belt before the time-skip, yet he's able to beat the head of Reinan's kendo team, and becomes capable of fighting and defeating black belts. 
• Minoru is rather weak at throwing punches, something his opponents can take advantage of, until he evolves into a more well-rounded fighter later on.
• Minoru's specialization is kicks. This is due to his gymnastics background, which gives him flexible legs.
• Signature Move: The domawashi (full body rolling kick)
• Minoru is occasionally referred to as Kohinata Kairyuu, which is a more common way of saying the kanji in his name.
• The first time the phrase "Karate Shoukoushi" is ever mentioned in the series is in chapter 251, when the media people are trying to come up with a catchphrase for Minoru. It means "The Little Prince of Karate."
• He's very shy when it comes to dealing with women. He still hasn't recognized Nana's feeling for him.
• He lives with Hayama and Pedro in the Men's dormitory at Reinan.