Ryoga Hibiki (響 良牙 Hibiki Ryōga) is Ranma Saotome's eternal rival, the only one he has outright stated to truly consider as such, arguably the tritagonist, and one of the most powerful fighters in the series.
The name "Ryoga" can be broken down to read as "good fang," which refers to the fact that he possesses rather prominent canines. Hibiki is translated as "to echo" or "to resound."
He is voiced by Kōichi Yamadera in the Japanese Version and Michael Donovan in the English Version.
Appearance
Ryoga's usual outfit consists of a yellow and black speckled bandana around his head, a yellow jumper, black trousers with yellow leg bands around the ankes and a black sash-like belt. He is sometimes shown wearing a blue T-shirt instead of his jumper.
Bio
Ryoga is Ranma Saotome's most persistent rival, as well as a boy with a notoriously bad sense of direction whom he met in junior high school. During that time, they had an ongoing rivalry about who would get bread at lunch; Ryōga never won, and eventually got sick of this and challenged Ranma to a duel in the vacant lot behind Ryōga's house. Unfortunately, it took four days for Ryōga, and Ranma had left after the third day of waiting. For this, Ryōga started to chase Ranma and ended up in China, all the way to Jusenkyo, where he was knocked into the Spring of Drowned Piglet by a crazy girl chasing a panda — which is why he blames his curse on Ranma's "cowardice". Ironically, Ranma actually was responsible, as it was he and Genma in their cursed forms who had caused Ryōga to fall in. Eventually, Ryōga tracked Ranma down to Nerima, where things got even more complicated when Ryōga fell in love with Akane, who was oblivious to this. Eventually, the two mellowed it out, though they still fought — as much for their mutual respect of each other's skills as because of their irritation, given Ranma's love of manipulating and poking fun at Ryōga. Ryōga's curse allows him to masquerade as "P-Chan", the adopted pet of Akane Tendō. Ryōga has a noble heart and usually means well, but he is also driven almost entirely by his whims and emotions; he can just as easily beat Ranma up as he can save his life.
Gallery
Trivia
- Ryoga is similar in appearance to Koga from Inuyasha, who is also romantically interested in the female protagonist and has a similar name that in part means "fang".
- On Tvtropes.org Ryoga is considered the undisputed "king of getting lost" and with good reason, another interesting fact is that since his debut numerous other mangas and animes have featured characters with an almost identical sense of direction as Ryoga, also of note is that these characters also share similar attributes to Ryoga such as monstrous super-human strength and endurance, examples of such characters are Roronoa Zoro from One Piece, Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin and Kenpachi Zaraki from Bleach.
Quotes
- Where the heck am I now?
- I got here without getting lost my directional sense has never led me right. But now I came straight where I want to be! It's the power of love, Akane
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