Ryuji Sakamoto

Ryuji Sakamoto is a playable character from Persona 5.

Appearances

 * Persona 5: Playable Character; Chariot Cooperation
 * Persona 5 (Manga): Major Character
 * Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers: Major Character

Design
Ryuji has short spiky blond hair and brown eyes. He has a noticeable widow's peak and his eyebrows are unusual in that he lacks the outer sides. It's unknown if he's bottle blond like Kanji Tatsumi, or if his eyebrows are naturally grown like that or shaven. Given the Japanese setting and his name, it's likely he is of Japanese descent and is bottle blond.

He wears his school’s uniform a bit modified. It consists of the standard black blazer, unbuttoned to reveal a yellow t-shirt with a comic style star symbol and the word 'ZOMG!', plaid trousers with suspenders and it's rolled up to reveal his ankles and sneakers.

His burglar outfit consists of matching black leather jacket and pants with knee pads, a red ascot, combat boots, a pair of yellow gloves, and a skull mask.

Personality
Ryuji is known as a disruptive "problem student" at school whose bad behavior causes all sorts of trouble for the teachers. Beneath his seemingly delinquent-like behaviour, Ryuji is actually a kind person at heart who is still trying to cope with his inability to continue becoming an athlete after the injury he suffered. Around his close friends, he is upbeat, friendly, and straightforward. He is also a bit short-tempered, usually getting easy to take the slightest bit of offense from others and sometimes even resort to violence. He can be clumsy and overly energetic sometimes, which resulted him accidentally throwing an outburst of being Phantom Thieves and such in public. This consequently helped Makoto identifying him and his friends as the Phantom Thieves when she was tailing them. He has no hesitation to show his dislike directly towards someone he doesn't like.

Persona 5
Ryuji Sakamoto was a transfer student of Syujin High School sometime ago before the protagonist. He is from abusive household, but then got a great opportunity for his future by becoming a start athlete. However, this earned disdain from the volley ball coach, Suguru Kamoshida, who then overtrained Ryuji, which resulted with Ryuji's leg break. To put more salt to the wound, Kamoshida spread rumours about his household to the whole school, leading Ryuji to punch him, causing the end of the track club and turning Ryuji into a school outcast.

The protagonist first meet Ryuji after Kamoshida picks up Anne Takamaki by car, and Ryuji who is nearby calls him "pervert" before greeting the protagonist who inquires about Kamoshida. Realizing the protagonist really knows nothing about Kamoshida, Ryuji quickly assumes he is a transfer student and the two got acquainted. The two accidentally enter Kamoshida Palace, the embodiment of Kamoshida's Shadow erected at where the school should be. Ryuji wants to help the students trapped in the palace but fails. They are blocked by Kamoshida at the entrance when they try to escape and are nearly killed but was saved when the protagonist awakened his Persona ability. With the help of shape-shifting cat called Morgana, they manages to escape from the Palace. When the two confronts the real Kamoshida, however, the teacher has no idea what they are talking about. To make sure whether they were dreaming or not, Ryuji suggests they once again go to the Palace again using the app installed in the protagonist's smartphone, which they succeeded.

Meeting Shadow Kamoshida again, the Shadow reveals that he intentionally injured Ryuji's leg while acting as his advisor to ruin Ryuji's ability to participate in athletics again. His scheme is for the principal to invest on his volleyball team only and to gain admiration or submission from all the students of his school, but Ryuji was a great threat to him for drawing that attention. Kamoshida's true intention angers Ryuji deeply and Captain Kidd calls out Ryuji to awaken to his Persona power for vengeance. Returning to the real world, Ryuji vows to expose Kamoshida's true self and becomes friends with the protagonist.

Together with the protagonist, they tries to get information about Kamoshida from other students, but everyone are too afraid to talk. Morgana, in cat form, then approaches Ryuji and the protagonist, suggesting they steal the source of Kamoshida's corrupt heart to make him confess his own crimes. However, when Morgana mentions that Kamoshida will die if they by a chance killed his Shadow, Ryuji and the protagonist asks for times to think. Not long afterwards, Anne's friend, Shiho Suzui, attempts suicide and when Ryuji and the protagonist heard from Yuki Mishima that Kamoshida called Shiho a day before, Ryuji and the protagonist realizes that Kamoshida has molested her. Ryuji angrily confronts Kamoshida about this, resulting Kamoshida to expel him, the protagonist, and Yuki.

Finally having enough with Kamoshida, Ryuji and the protagonist agrees with Morgana's suggestion to steal Kamoshida's treasure and make him confess his crimes. They later are joined by Anne who also wants to expose Kamoshida after hearing everything from Shiho.

Cooperation
Ryuji's Cooperation is unlocked automatically on 12th April but his Coop Ability is only unlocked since rank 2.

Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers
To be written.

Battle Quotes

 * "I'm all fired up!" (Using Shotguns)
 * "Perrrrsonaaaa!" (Summoning Persona)
 * "Captain Kidd!" (Captain Kidd casting skill)
 * "Leave it to me." (Receiving Baton Touch)
 * "This is the END!" (Initating All-Out Attack)

Trivia

 * Ryuji's backstory shares similarities with Anna Yoshizaka from Persona 2: Both are former star athletes but become juvenile delinquents after their ability to run has been ruined.
 * In the Japanese official site, Skull is given the comical title of "Phantom Thieves' Captain Kirikomi" . "Captain Kirikomi" is a reference to the card from the  series. "" precisely refers to curing fish slices from Hokkaido regional cuisine.