Ryohei Sasagawa

Ryohei Sasagawa
Reborn! character
Ryohei as depicted in the manga
First appearance	Reborn! chapter 14 Reborn! anime 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. 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

Personality

Ryohei is the older brother of the main character's love interest, Kyoko. He is a boxing-obsessed student who often prefers to fight his opponents head on and sees any disadvantage as a chance to improve his fighting skills. Ryohei even gains a slight crush on the adult I-Pin after seeing her fight. He 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, which resulted in the scar on his left temple. Though Kyoko feels responsible, he was not dissuaded and continued to fight.

He wants to recruit Tsuna to the boxing club and in response, Reborn wants to recruit him into the family using his love of boxing to draw him into many activities. 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. Due to Ryohei's enthusiasm, he often rushes into things without fully evaluating the situation, which often ends in his humiliation. He also has a short memory and forgets many important details, something his adult self solved by writing memo's.

Abilities

Ranking as Namimori's fifth strongest student, Ryohei is an excellent boxer who possesses greater strength than the average human. His boxing training resulted in his proficiency in hand-to-hand combat, and ability 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." His body's potential strength is exemplified during his training with the Arcobaleno Colonnello, who told him that his naturally strong muscles and his superior cells are at its best after his body is rested, thus Ryohei would only uses his left fist in order to make sure his right is in perfect condition. Colonnello also shoots him with a spiritually condensed bullet to unlock his potential, which enables him to unleash "Maximum Cannon", a blow strong enough to break boulders.

In the future, Ryohei has greatly improved in his abilities; he is able to move at greater speeds by having learned Lissuria's footwork techniques, using it to upgrade his Maximum Cannon into "Maximum Ingram", which deals multiple blows. His yellow Dying Will Flame, which contains "activation" characteristics, can increase a person's healing capabilities when used with a special box. In addition, he is able to use his flame to increase the rate of recovery in his own skin cells. He can also cause other box weapons to self-destruct by overloading them with his own energy.

He also carries a special box that 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 strength. The kangaroo generates 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 activation flame, instantly heals Ryohei's fists when damaged. It also produces a pair of boots, which grants him the ability to fly.

Plot overview

Adult Ryohei as depicted in the future.

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 later appears in Namimori Town, he loses a fight against Ken Joshima, and gets temporarily hospitalized.

Ryohei is later entrusted with the Vongola's Ring of the Sun and was trained by Colonnello. Despite facing major disadvantages, he defeats Lissuria in the Vongola Tournament's first match against the Vongola's elite assassination group, the Varia. He later saves some of his teammates from Mammon's illusions during the tournament's final battle. He also saves Lissuria in the process, despite him being an enemy.

In the series' alternate future story arc, after returning from meeting with the Varia in Italy, adult Ryohei finds and delivers the past's Chrome to the Vongola base at Namimori, along with the information he retrieved concerning the Vongola's plan to attack the Millefiore Family's base in five days. During their siege of the base, he encounters and defeats Millefiore member Baishana. Later the rooms of the entire base were rearranged and the group split in two. Ryohei and Gokudera encounted Gamma, whom subsequently defeats Ryohei in battle. Ryohei, however, is able to protect Gokudera from Gamma's attack with the last of his strength, and his Kangaryū's abilities help Gokudera gain the upper-hand against Gamma. Ryohei's unconscious body is later carried away for safety by Kusakabe Tetsuya, who joined in the raid together with Chrome, Hibari, Lambo and Ipin.

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 although he only appeared in the Wii version of the Dream Hyper Battle!, due to his short role in the Kokuyo Ark.

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.