Ryohei Sasagawa

Ryohei Sasagawa
Reborn! character
Ryohei as depicted in the manga
First appearance	Reborn!chapter 14 Reborn! episode 1
In-universe information
Relatives	Kyoko Sasagawa (sister)
Nationality	Japanese

Ryohei Sasagawa (笹川 了平, Sasagawa Ryōhei) is a fictional character in the anime and manga series Reborn! created by Akira Amano. The Reborn! series developed into a media franchise, and consists of an anime, manga, light novels, video games, soundtracks, and other merchandise or collectibles. Ryohei is portrayed as one of the series' protagonists, and is introduced as the energetic member of the boxing club at Namimori High. He would often attempt to get the main character, Tsuna Sawada, to join his club, and in response, Tsuna's home tutor, Reborn, attempts to get him to join Tsuna's Mafia family.

Character outline

Ryohei is the older brother of the main character's love interest, Kyoko. Ryohei is always hiding the truth of what he is doing from Kyoko due to an incident that happened when they were still in primary school: some high school students who did not like Ryohei used Kyoko to lure him into a trap, leading him to suffer severe head injuries, which resulted in the scar on his left temple, during his attempt to rescue her. Though Kyoko feels responsible for this incident, he was not dissuaded and continued to fight. He is also a boxing-obsessed student, even barging into a zoo expecting to fight a bear, but instead ends up fighting a lion. He later gains a slight crush on a teenage I-Pin after fighting her.

He wants to recruit Tsuna to the boxing club and in response, Reborn wants to recruit him into the family. Every time he sees Tsuna and his friends doing something strange, he gets fired up and always wants to be a part of it, though appears to be unaware that it is Mafia-related. Reborn uses his love of boxing to draw him into many activities. Due to Ryohei's apparent enthusiasm for anything he does, he often rushes into things without fully evaluating the situation, which often ends in humiliation; one time, he attempts to become a lifeguard despite his poor swimming style.

He and Hayato Gokudera have a small rivalry in which they use unimaginative names to express dislike for each other's hair styles. A bandage is always seen on his nose throughout the series. Before an attack on the Millefiore Family during the alternate future arc, an adult Ryohei no longer has the bandage, and claims that he had already forgotten about it (Chapter 175, page 15). He also has a short memory and forgets many important details, something his adult self solves in the future by writing messages down.

Abilities

Ryohei is an excellent boxer and is always "extreme" whenever he fights. Having trained as a boxer, he is quite proficient in hand to hand combat and is able to take and give a huge amount of physical punishment. Even the Dying Will Shot, which increases a person's strength by removing the body's limiters, has no effect on him since he always lives "to the extreme." Ryohei is also said to have been born with naturally strong muscles, possessing greater strength than the average human being. However, he cannot always exert his force to 100%; in his battle with Lissuria, he needs Kyoko's encouragement in order to fully use his power.

In the future, Ryohei has greatly improved in his ability to box. He also learns Lissuria's footwork techniques in order to gain the ability to move at greater speeds, using it to upgrade his "Maximum Cannon" into "Maximum Ingram" (Ingram is a type of machine gun), which deals multiple blows at once compared to his Cannon's one powerful blow. His yellow Dying Will Flame, which contains "activation" characteristics, can increase a person's healing capabilities when used with a special box, enabling the person to heal others almost instantly and without pain. In addition, he is able to use his flame to increase the rate of recovery in his skin cells, thus quickly healing himself from drastic wounds. He can also cause other box weapons to self-destruct by overloading them with his own energy.

He also carries a special box that, when activated with a ring, releases a scarred and bandaged kangaroo named "Kangaryū" (漢我流, lit. "my way of honor"), but only uses it for support since he relies on his own physical strengths. The kangaroo produces Dying Will boxing gloves (Sereno Gloves weaved from special plants that multiply healing capabilities), which, when combined with Kangaryū's ability to charge objects with his flames' activation power, allows the gloves to reach an extremely high level of cell regeneration, instantly healing Ryohei's fists when damaged. It also produces a pair of boots, which grants him the ability to fly when its flames are used as boosters.

Plot overview

In the initial parts of the story, Ryohei, like other characters, plays a small role, randomly appearing only a few times to take part in what are usually Reborn's schemes.

When the Kokuyo Gang appears in Namimori Town, he is targeted due to his status as Namimori's fifth strongest student. He loses his battle against Ken Joshima, and has five of his teeth pulled outalong with being hospitalized, in the anime, instead of getting his teeth pulled out, a watch, which was stuck at five o'clock, was left on his chest.

Ryohei 10 years later as depicted in the series' alternate future.

Ryohei is later entrusted with the Vongola's Ring of the Sun and learns new techniques during his training with his tutor, Colonnello. He wins the first match of the Vongola Tournament, defeating Lissuria with the skill "Maximum Cannon", which breaks Lissuria's leg and the metal plate on his knee.

During the Sky battle, he saves Chrome Dokuro, Takeshi Yamamoto, and Gokudera from Mammon. In the process, he also saves Lissuria.

In the Future

In the series' alternate future story arc, an adult Ryohei had gone to Italy in order to deliver a certain message to the Vongola's assassination group, the Varia, under adult Tsuna's orders. He comes back to Japan with the past's Chrome, whom he found at the Kokuyo hideout, as well as with information he retrieved from the Varia concerning the Vongola's plan to attack the Millefiore Family's base, and a doll of I-Pin's master, which he gives to I-Pin.

During their siege of the Millefiore base, he battles Millefiore member Baishana outside of Irie's research lab. By using his special box, which releases a kangaroo named Kangaryū, as well as an upgraded version of his Maximum Cannon, "Maximum Ingram", he defeats Baishana.

Right after the rooms of the entire Millefiore base are rearranged by Shoichi Irie, Ryohei and Gokudera encounter Gamma. Ryohei battles Gamma despite knowing that his Sun's activation powers are useless against the latter's Thunder-type powers, and is thus defeated by the latter's abilities. However, he helps Gokudera gain the upper-hand against Gamma, when the former replaces him in the battle. His unconscious body is later carried by Kusakabe Tetsuya for safety.

Appearances in other media

Besides his appearances in the original manga series and its anime adaptation, Ryohei has appeared in various other Reborn! works, including several of the series' video games.

He also stars in one of the Hidden Bullet light novels called Extreme Memories, which is set before he met Tsuna. The chapter shows how Ryohei and Hibari first met and why he has never asked Hibari to join the boxing club.