Ryo Fukukado

"Y'know... Gambling is not just about strategy or reading your opponent. Before everything, it's mainly based on luck!"

Ryo Fukukado (福門 涼) is a student at Hope's Peak Academy's Class 78th and participant of the Killing School Life featured on the first role-playing game of Danganronpa. His title is Ultimate Gambler (超高校級のギャンブラー, lit. Super High School Level Gambler), replacing Celestia Ludenberg from the original game. Ryo is also the titular protagonist of Danganronpa: Fukukado, a spin-off written by Miika which explores his past as a promising gambler alongside Nozomi Kirigakure.

Appearance
At the beginning of the Killing School Life in the first role-playing game, Ryo appears to be a young high school-aged teenager, but due to the memory loss, he is two years older than he believed. Similar to his canonical counterpart, Ryo has black hair and large red eyes, often compared to rubies by the narrator. Unlike Celestia, however, it is said that his locks are real and not clip-ons like hers. His bangs are peaked just above his eyes and covering his eyebrows while most of them are swept to the right side of his face and the rest is placed behind his ear as well as two strands of hair that fall at the sides of his head. His hair is tied in high pigtails with bows, red on the left and black on the right; however, in Danganronpa: Fukukado, Ryo had short hair in a bob cut just above his shoulders.

Ryo has a very androgynous appearance due to his short stature and clothes. As a cross-dresser, he is often mistaken for a girl at first, but he always belies that impression and makes it clear that he is a boy. He has light complex and a thin body, although his thighs are remarkably thick as noted by the narrator herself and even some of the characters in the cast. In the first role-playing game, Ryo wore the female uniform of his old high school: a white sailor uniform with long sleeves adorned with a red stripe at the end of the sleeves, on the tie that matches the tie of the same color and on the hem of the shirt. In Danganronpa Fukukado, it is revealed that his academy also had elementary and middle school and the uniforms were different for each of its students. From the beginning to the middle of the spin-off, he wore a sailor uniform, but black and with the same stripes and red bow. He also wears high socks while in the killing game: a black one on his left leg and a red one on his right leg; In Danganronpa Fukukado, he wore red stockings. In both scenarios, he wears white loafers.

Personality
Ryo is presented as an outgoing and relaxed young teenage boy who feels comfortable wearing clothes of his opposite sex. He is told how to always have a smile on his lips and likesto tease people around him, either with his androgynous appearance or by disconcerting words. Yukio Shizukane describes him as someone cute in attitudes, although he is sometimes afraid of the expressions he can make. Similar to Kokichi Oma, he always gives the aura of someone who knows more than he looks, sometimes releasing several cryptic phrases and not revealing what he knows to other Killing Game players.

Certainly, something that everyone could see in his character was his experience. Ryo is smart and cunning; he was able to convince Monokuma to bet with him and thus gained the privilege of knowing everything about the Killing Game before everyone else. This attitude led him to be killed by Enju Otsuka, who was manipulated by Amaya Hayama, who ended up finding out about the secret files he had. Still, it is noteworthy to mention that he did not seem to be afraid of death because he never tried to fight back Enju's attack, even though he had no idea that Amaya was involved in any way.

Ryo is somewhat perverted, often making presumptuous assumptions about what others say and do. He suggested that Yukio wanted to call him by his first name, thus showing greater intimacy, almost as if they were lovers. Even though he told the lucky student that he was just joking, it is strongly implied that he was serious. Among all the students in Class 78th, Ryo seems to have the most sexual experience as he flirt with everyone, regardless of whether they are boys or girls. In some unofficial role-plays, Ryo has sex with Yukio, sometimes being the passive one although he can get dominative at times.

Ryo is confident in his skills as a gambler, however he always attributes his victories largely to his luck, one of the reasons he says he is interested in Yukio and his talent. He believes that luck is like a cycle of day and night, where luck may be good or not, and that, regardless of the result, turns out to be important in everyone's life, even if it is in a terrible way for them. Ryo has remarkable optimism, as Yukio says that he seems unfazed and unshakable by all the events that followed in the Killing Game, even his death. He is also quite brave and daring to challenge Monokuma to a bet as he wanted to help everyone with useful information against the mastermind. Even though his orchestrated death by Amaya prevented him from continuing with his plan, Yukio describes him as a strong and brave person for having died trying to help them out of that situation.

Talent and Abilities
Contrary to popular belief, Ryo is said to have started very recently. He started to gamble close to half of his middle school, right after he left home and happened to meet Nozomi, who convinced him to play with her and another group. He won his first match easily against them even though the game was not known to him at first. From then on, he became popular for, in addition to winning every gamble, no matter what game it was, being said to be crazy and extremely bold in his bets, even having times that he bet his life with a smile on his face. It is said that he even earned Nozomi's life in the first game they played together and, although he did that in fact, he treated her more as a friend attached to himself than as a slave.

As such, Ryo is intelligent, smart and always has unconventional ideas during games, many of these ideas were extremely risky and he could lose everything if something went wrong. However, it is said that he has never lost even a single bet since he started gambling. According to the files found in Chapter 6 by Suzune Tsukishima and Yukio, Ryo had always been a fan of games and played with his classmates, even without betting anything, so the lucky student theorized that, possibly, his background made him be even more attentive to people and their attitudes. He is described as being unreadable by everyone and it is difficult to know what he is thinking just by looking at his face.

Early life
Ryo was born into a wealthy and influential Japanese family. As he felt uncomfortable wearing suits, he started to wear dresses and clothes of the type against the wishes of his parents, who were ashamed of such an attitude. Wanting independence from them and total autonomy of their actions, he left his home and eventually found Nozomi, a girl a little older than him. From there, he started to bet without pause with his group.

He was a student at Sunset Hall Private Academy (私立日没館学園) even though it is said that he didn't attend classes at all before going to Hope's Peak Academy. He gambled in different parts of the country, casinos and even with groups from the underground, winning huge amounts unimaginable for himself in games that he didn't even know the rules when he accepted to play. He gained a reputation as a Gambling Maniac who even bet his life and trusted risky strategies to win.

Killing School Life
Ryo was among the ones who were chosen to attend Class 78th but was trapped inside the school along with his classmates. He woke up somewhere near the Monokuma's red door room and presented himself to Amaya Hayama and Yukio Shizukane right after he saw them in the corridor. They discussed about what the red door would lead to and, as Yukio thought Ryo was a girl, he was utterly surprised when he said that he was a boy. Amaya already knew that.

Ryo was not that present most of the time after Monokuma presented that they were trapped in there but could leave if they kill someone. In a fatidic morning, Yukio greeted him and asked where he was this whole time but the other didn't say where. Instead, he invited him to gamble with him which he accepts. After the breakfast, Yukio met him at Ryo's room where he discovers that Kotaro Koshimizu and Miki Kagurazaka were already there, playing together, and Kotaro was winning. The group played and gambled for a while. After, they separated.

Naturally, Ryo also received a motive video from Monokuma, but was not scared by it at all. With the knowledge the group possessed, they thought that was Enju who knew that Ryo was in possession of some important information about Monokuma and the mastermind, that is why she threatened him with a note. However, he didn't do anything about it. In the next night, he was then attacked by Enju and didn't struggle, dying for blood loss. All the signs of struggle was arranjed by Enju.

It was later revealed that Amaya was Enju's accomplice and she was the one who threatened him with the note. Enju didn't know anything about the important file that Ryo was in possession and so, just killed him persuaded by Amaya and her motive video, leaving the file to her. Despite he being the first one to ultimately die in the killing game, his boldness to gamble with Monokuma was very important to discover Mitsuru as the real traitor among them.

Creation and Development
Ryo's character prototype was created before Miika even considered the idea of making a Danganronpa-themed role-playing game. He was based on the few manga that involved gambling that she knew at the time, Kakegurui and, later, Liar Game. His personality, based mainly on Celestia Ludenberg and Kokichi Oma from the main series, gave the impression that he would be the trickster among all the cast, which was done on purpose to shock the player when he appeared as the first victim, similar to Rantaro Amami's death in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. The fact that he is a cross-dresser makes reference to Chihiro Fujisaki, who dressed like a girl due to his inferiority complex and strenght obssession; unlike him, however, Ryo is open about his gender and only dresses this way because he finds it more comfortable.

His last name means "fortune gate" (福門) and was taken from the character Emi Fukukado, better known as Ms. Joke, from Kohei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia series; it refers to his wealth background and also to the fact that he is an incredible gambler who has won unimaginable amounts of bets even in the country's underground. His first name means "cool" or "composed" (涼) and was taken from one of the protagonists from Homura Kawamoto's Kakegurui gambling manga, Ryota Suzui; it makes reference to the conditions necessary to be a gambler such as masking your feelings and being able to act coolly in relation to your own strategies and those of your opponents.

Although initially created for a Kakegurui fanfiction, Ryo became the Ultimate Gambler for re-reading Danganronpa’s first game. In a call with Yukio, Miika claims that if she were to give Ryo another name, it would be Hayato (早兎), which means "fast rabbit"; she explains that it is due to the sexual promiscuity of the rabbits, making reference to his personality and the various past cases that he was involved due to his gambling background. This name was used in another story of hers, this one that focuses on a scenario where Yumeko nor her relatives exist, in addition to exploring the non-canonical history of the Batsubami's.

Quotes

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Trivia

 * His voice actor would be Miyuki Sawashiro.
 * She is the Japanese voice of Toko Fukawa and Genocide Jack from the original series.
 * Ryo is clear about his pansexuality as he appears to have sexual interest in Yukio, who is a guy, and Nozomi, his best friend who is a girl. In the latter case, however, he is shown to have romantic feelings for her.
 * His former school's name is based on Maki Harukawa's.
 * Yukio's first impression about Ryo was as follow: "Too blessed, for sure he will be the cause of discord in the group. I liked him and his look at first sight, and his 'childish' personality (when he saw me) made me like him even more". Yukio thinks of Ryo as a fellow classmate, friend and gambling partner: "As Yukio has a strange luck, the two bet a lot. Ryo is very cute with Yukio, and Yukio is very fond of Ryo, considering him a cute friend."
 * His character was adapted as a student at Hyakkao Private Academy's First Year Flower Class alongside Itsuki Sumeragi, replacing Yumeko Jabami as the protagonist. His name was changed to Hayato not to be confused with Ryota Suzui.