"I know you can do better."

Ryu (リュウ(隆) Ryū ~ "Prosperous" , "Plentiful" , "Abundant") is the main protagonist of the Street Fighter series. He is an experienced martial artist, highly focused on his training, and aims to become the strongest he can. The original “Shotokan” of fighting games, there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t know him in some form of recognition. Though he hardly needs any introduction, we’ll give him one anyways.

Ryu has been Capcom's poster boy for Street Fighter since the beginning. When looking at his design now, we can arguably find so many that exceed him in terms of originality and intricacy, but don't forget, he was the original karate guy of video games. Let’s rephrase that... "The original fighting game karate guy, who could throw fireballs." Of course, Ryu can do a lot more than fireballs, as his moveset has nicely evolved over the years. However, the base of his design has never changed... yet another respectable quality about Ryu and his style. Sporting his iconic headband, gloves, and traditional martial arts attire, Ryu is the first real "hero" of fighting games. He is the most serious and focused fighter of all. The fact that his design is practically unchanged in today's fighting games goes to show that good things don't need to change. In addition, there are deeper meanings and details within Ryu and his story, and something even real-life martial artists can immediately admire.

Player Note: This is just a little journal for Ryu to hang around. Visually I pull him from SF I and SF II, but some other elements may leak in. To potential castmates, though I enjoy plenty aspects of Street Fighter, I’m not a huge buff of the series (could never get behind the playstyle), so if it’s not something easily found on the wiki, it might go past my notice. Noted here so the players who love and know the series inside and out get the head’s up; they deserve it. Keep being awesome, players!

Appearance
Ryu's most recognizable attire consists of a white karate gi with the sleeves torn off, medium length hair, a long red headband, a black martial arts belt and bare feet (a choice he makes of his own, believing it to be more comfortable). In many of his appearances, Ryu carries around a large, white duffel bag containing items important to his travels, such as clothing, plane tickets, passports, and local currency.

Ryu is a young man of Japanese origin, standing around 5'9" (175 cm) and weighing 187 lbs (85 kg), all of which is pure muscle. While his brown eyes are rather common, apart from being intense and focused, he has some very unique eyebrows, starting normally at the insides and then flaring into three spikes at the outsides. Over the course of time, he has grown taller and more muscular; his karate gi has grown more tattered, his gloves have changed from brown to red and his headband has changed from white to red. Most notably, Ryu’s hair has changed as he grew, his style going from smooth to spikey, his bangs from longer to shorter, and his color darkened from red to brown to dark brown and finally to black, with either a gray, brown, or even blue tint.

The red headband Ryu wears was originally worn by his best friend, Ken, who gave it to him to remind him of a valuable life lesson. The red gloves worn by Ryu have started to bear stylized writing, which resembles the Fūrinkazan characters on his belt. Ryu's belt has four kanji emblazoned upon the right end: wind (風 Kaze), forest (林 Hayashi), fire (火 Hi) and mountain (山 Yama); these four kanji make up the Fūrinkazan. The four words are based on chapter seven of Sun Tzu's Art of War, which dictates how one should conduct battle: "as fast as the wind, as quiet as the forest, as daring as fire, and immovable as the mountain." Though he mostly wears his gi, Ryu sometimes dons casual outfits; his primary is a white short-sleeve shirt, blue denim jeans and red and white sneakers with a black watch on his left wrist. When going casual, Ryu chooses not to wear his red headband. And for those who care, his blood type is O and his official measurements stand at B112/W81/H85.

Personality
Ryu is a silent, meek, humble, submissive, self-deprecating, and respectful individual; which is often juxtaposed against the light-hearted, fiery persona of his childhood friend, Ken. He wanders the world with the desire for complete mastery of his martial art, and takes both his travels and training seriously. For Ryu, the training and the mastery that comes from the fight are all that he requires for satisfaction, declining the more material trappings of his various accomplishments as a warrior, simply moving on to his next challenge once he is victorious without delay, unless he is offered food or if he wants to converse with his friendly rivals. Always seeking new opponents to test his strength and train to overcome his previous limits, Ryu lives life as a wandering martial artist and a practitioner of the Ansatsuken fighting style. Though he does not actively seek the role of a hero, he possesses a strong sense of justice as well; protecting the innocent against the predations of bullies and tyrants is the one of the few things that Ryu will prioritize over a satisfying fight.

Because of this "wandering warrior" persona and also being trained far away from modern-day culture, Ryu often appears detached to others. Despite this, he is a kind, authentic, good-hearted, and demonstrative warrior who readily helps those less fortunate than himself, is protective and gentle towards children, and on rare occasions, shows a sense of humor (albeit a bad one). He also respects others with skills equal to his own and he seems to hold certain heroes in high respect. To those who he is able to beat and is on friendly terms with, he compliments or encourages them to continue training and get stronger, sometimes offering help first hand (e.g. Dan). By the middle of his current adventures, Ryu has become somewhat friendlier; while still very quiet and reserved, but is willing to greet people with a smile and some kind advice, very much like his master Gouken.

In the early days of most Street Fighter media, Ryu had a more "rough and tumble" personality, as well as a bit of a goofy and lighthearted side to him. He was shown to be a rather happy individual, a trait common among shounen main characters, but could be quite irritable when hungry and typically consumed large amounts of food if the opportunity presented itself. Some of these traits are preserved in modern portrayals.

There is, however, a dark side to Ryu: his drive to improve himself, no matter the difficulty, risks developing into a drive to win and to be the best at any cost. This darker drive is fed by (and in turn feeds) the Satsui no Hado within his soul, an influence which Ryu must constantly fight to suppress from killing. In times when his inner darkness threatens to overcome his humanity, Ryu relies on his friends and rivals - primarily Ken, Gouken, Chun-Li, Sagat, and Sakura - to keep him grounded and help him overcome out of it.

Despite his stern nature often appearing as boring or detached to others, Ryu does have his own preferences, both likes and dislikes. He likes martial arts in general, as both a subject and a practice, and holds respect for what he considers the path of the warrior. Due to his wandering lifestyle, Ryu greatly enjoys nature and traveling, as well as helping people with their problems if he can. Amusingly, two of his non-martial skills include being able to sleep anywhere and a surprisingly-good skill at hitchhiking, both which help his travels. According to some of his quotes, Ryu has no food preferences and will eat whatever is available to him, but other factoids list some favorites such as mizuyokan (Japanese sweet bean jelly), grapes, and meatloaf. Ryu has shown a dislike for materialism, both directly and indirectly, and though he can afford shoes, chooses not to wear them because he’s more comfortable barefoot. Still, at the invitation of friends, he’s not above enjoying some comforts of modern living for a little while. Lastly, he also suffers from arachnophobia (fear of spiders) due to once waking up with one in his mouth, a memory that still haunts him.