- Gender: Male
- Age: 16
- Hair: Black
- Eyes: Green
- Nationality: Japanese
- From the manga Ranma 1/2, by Rumiko Takahashi
- First Appearance: Chapter 5
A young man with extremely bad luck and an incredibly poor sense of direction, Ryouga first met Ranma Saotome when both of them were briefly attending the same junior high school. The meeting wasn’t friendly, as Ranma snatched the last lunch that Ryouga wished to get, leading the somewhat overly-emotional young man to vow vengeance for the offence. This incident repeated itself more than a few times before Ryouga finally challenged Ranma to a duel. However, Ryouga got lost on the way and did not in fact show up until four days after the fight was supposed to take place, by which point Ranma had been dragged off on his fateful trip to China by his father.
Thinking Ranma had run away from the fight, Ryouga followed them as best as he could, and did in fact make it to China and even to Jyusenkyou… only to be accidentally knocked off a cliff by the then-female Ranma and thus plunging into one of cursed springs, the Spring of Pig. Ryouga despises this curse, considers it all-but-unmanning, and tries his best to keep it a secret from anyone. Blaming Ranma for his misfortunes, he continued to try and hunt down his rival and finally get the man-to-man fight he craved.
Ryouga is courageous, generally honourable, kind-hearted and protects the weak. However, he’s also bad-tempered, stubborn, has a tendency to blame his problems on others, and has trouble resisting his baser urges when tempted (though he generally feels bad when he gives in). Ryouga has had little experience interacting with people: he is easily tricked into believing almost anything by even ridiculous ploys, and extremely shy around the opposite sex in any situation.
He is a powerful and talented martial artist, one of the few people in Ranma’s age group that can seriously rival him. While not as fast and agile as Ranma, Ryouga is considerably more durable, and his strength is frightening. He can lift several tons with each hand if sufficiently motivated, and indeed occasionally has trouble controlling his strength, especially if he is distracted or emotional. In addition, his frequent involuntary travels brought about by his poor sense of direction have allowed him to see a wide variety of styles and techniques, several of which he has picked up. He sometimes uses weapons, but is primarily a bare-handed fighter.