He's generally friendly and on good terms with everyone in the Phantom Thieves (despite frequent bickering), particularly Ann, with whom he shares somewhat of a love-hate relationship. He even calls himself a "bad son," due to him messing up his efforts to make things easier for his mother. When he tells the group about the aftermath of his confrontation with Kamoshida, he sounds broken when he admits that, following a meeting with the school authorities, she apologized to him for being a single mother and not giving him a strong father-figure in life. He deeply cares for his mother and takes fervent effort as an athlete to relieve her worries he reveals his father was an alcoholic who beat him and his mother and then left, so his mother is the only family he has.
This is somewhat justified, given how Morgana had been insulting Ryuji from practically the moment they met, and two ultimately seem to consider themselves even by the end.īeneath his seemingly delinquent-like behavior, Ryuji is actually a kind and altruistic person who is still trying to cope with his inability to continue becoming an athlete after the injury he suffered at Kamoshida's hand. He also never gives a real apology for repeatedly calling Morgana useless, which resulted in him briefly leaving the team when he does apologize, it's rather half-hearted, and when Morgana returns, it's for his own reasons and for Haru. When Yusuke scolds him for carelessly exposing them as the Phantom Thieves to Makoto, Ryuji points out that Ann got recorded as well, ignoring the fact that he was much louder than her and the one who implicated them by name-dropping the Phantom Thieves. Ryuji also occasionally has a hard time accepting blame for things, though it's less he doesn't recognize when he's at fault so much as he hates being held solely responsible for an incident when he feels he isn't the only issue, or if it was simply beyond the group's control. This, combined with his frequent density, causes him to be viewed as an idiot by his peers, Morgana in particular. This consequently helped Makoto to identify him and the others when she was tailing them. Ryuji can be clumsy and overly energetic sometimes he has a habit of yelling constantly, despite frequent warnings from Morgana to keep his voice down, which usually results in loud outbursts that often includes accidentally revealing himself and his friends as the Phantom Thieves. As a result of all this, Ryuji is by far the most belligerent of the group, with Haru being the only member he doesn't argue with on a regular basis. It gets to the point where simply listening to the protagonist's story of how he got arrested makes him extremely angry. He tends to be very blunt about his feelings without showing any hesitation, especially in regards to his hatred of selfish adults and authority figures who abuse their power.
He is also rather short-tempered, easily taking offence from even the slightest of comments and can sometimes even resort to violence. He is very vulgar and aggressive, using by far the most foul language of the group and often tearing into people with no concern for their feelings, as shown in his early interactions with Yusuke and Makoto. He is quite proud of his status as a self-proclaimed "troublemaker" and his rebellious, mischievous and disobedient nature are the perfect qualities to be a Phantom Thief. Ryuji is known as a disruptive "problem student" at school whose bad behaviour causes all sorts of trouble for the teachers. He wears sunglasses on his head, a golden chain bracket on his right wrist and a metal bracket on his left wrist. In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, he retain his Shujin Academy uniform except he wears a yellow with a black "X" design and a red tattered scarf, and yellow and light blue sneakers with matching laces. Due to his injury, he walks and runs with a slight limp, and occasionally trips if he overexerts himself. His burglar outfit consists of matching black jacket and pants with knee pads, a red ascot, combat boots, a pair of yellow gloves, and a skull mask. His summer school uniform is the same as his winter's, except his yellow t-shirt is replaced with a red one reading 'NO MO RULES' and he no longer wears his blazer. His white sneakers have a rising sun flag motif. His pants have black suspenders that hang down instead of being worn on his shoulders. He has plaid trousers rolled up to reveal his ankles.
It consists of the standard black blazer, unbuttoned to reveal a yellow t-shirt with a comic style star symbol and the word 'ZOMG!'. He wears his winter school uniform a bit modified. He has a noticeable widow's peak and his eyebrows are unusual in that he lacks the outer sides. According to Sadayo Kawakami, his hair is naturally black. Ryuji has short spiky dyed blond hair and dark brown eyes.