Ryoken Kogami, also known as Varis or Revolver in the Japanese version, is the leader of the Knights of Hanoi and the main antagonist in the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS anime. He is the rival of Yusaku Fujiki also known as, Playmaker.
He is voiced by Shunsuke Takeuchi in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Daniel J. Edwards. in the English version of the anime.
Appearance[]
While in LINK VRAINS, Varis has two avatars: his first one is a man with dark crimson hair and red highlights. His ears are pierced with Egyptian-style earrings with a blue diamond and a gold bullet "token". Varis wears a tan-colored visor giving him yellow featureless eyes, designed with a white casing and a diamond-shaped pattern of white dots with red centers, linked together by a white circle that surrounds a white dot in the center of Varis' forehead that suggests the barrel of a gun. The visor of his mask can be covered with a dark lens to protect him from bright lights.
Varis wears a white jumpsuit with a black elongated "T" shape tracing to the bottom of his chest, red ovals overlaying black ovals on the sides of the torso, and a v-shaped line of green where a belt would be. He wears a white trench coat lined with green with golden lines patterning both the inside and the outside of the coat. The sleeves are green white shoulder-pads and red diagonal bands on the bicep, making it unclear whether or not they are part of the jumpsuit or the coat. Varis also wears a small white mantle with a black line tracing around the middle, and a green ornament attached at the front on either side of his neck and at the back by red gems. Varis wears white-elbow length gloves with red diamond shapes on his forearm, and black boots with green heels and red patterns on the front that may be part of his jumpsuit.
His second avatar form resembles the first one with several alterations: he retains his fair skin and blue eyes, his maroon hair is now grey, and the red highlights on the sides, which are now more pronounced, have a shade of pink roots. The shaped of his mask now appears more rhombus-like, the glass now recedes up to his nose, and the forehead has a plate with the four dots spread out. The trench coat has a black color scheme on the body, a black stripe among the outer borders, the black stripe on the upper section has been removed, and the lower exterior sports a lime stripe and patter. The ornament around his neck is now lime, has a more square-like structure, and the red gems have been replaced with small, rectangular red lights. His sleeves are now black with a lime exterior, and the red diamond pattern on the forearms are more wider. His suit is more white, he wears a black belt with a gold buckle, which has a bullet carved on each sides, a red bullet-shaped light at the center, and a wide red diamond pattern on each outer thigh exterior of the pants. His black boots retained the red pattern, but now sports a lime border above the red patterns and a lime heel.
In real life, Ryoken is a tall young, fair skin man with light-blue eyes and has white hair that spikes backwards at the sides, with purple-blue highlights. On his right hand, he has a tattoo of a red triangle. He has at least two outfits, the first consisting of a white buttoned shirt and black trousers, while the second consists of a pink v-neck shirt underneath a light grey suit jacket, with black trousers that ends above his ankles and white shoes.
As a child, he wore a grey hoodie over a dark pink shirt and dark pair of pants with purple and black shoes.
Personality[]
Much like the other Knights of Hanoi, Varis is a ruthless individual that seeks Ai. He bears a great hatred towards Ai and the Cyberse world considering them a threat to the real world, a notion he developed from his father's research into AI-human interactions. His resolve to rid the world of Ai leads him to take drastic measures, including endangering the entire VRAINS networks and many human lives. However, Varis claims that his actions are so that he can fulfil his promise to his father to save humanity. He shows his strong resolve numerous times during the show, notably his willingness to plunge into a Data Storm far out of his league to activate "Storm Access" to compete against Playmaker during their Duel at the Tower of Hanoi, which would have severely wounded him if it had not been for his father's assistance.
Although he's a fair duelist who honors his words, he has shown at the same time to take hostages like he did with Blue Angel and several of the the Deleted victims and not concern himself very much with the collateral damage his actions cause. In fact, he justifies this as being for the greater good of humanity. These strongly held ideals and his extremists actions make him akin to a terrorist minus the villain intent. While not fully Varis has good loser signs
Unlike most hackers, Varis distrusts LINK VRAINS and the people that, to him, are dedicating their lives to it and make false relationships with other people. He values a person's life more. He distrusts Artificial Intelligence, to the point where he does not have one installed into his Duel Disk. Due to that, he looks down on the internet world as false. Despite his hatred towards VRAINS, Varis isn't against using the Cyberse for his own benefit. When Ai called him out on that, Varis described it as "counteracting poison with poison".
As he mentions during Yusaku's confrontation, Ryoken was the voice that taught Yusaku the three reason method. In real life, despite all his negative traits, Ryoken is also shown to be a rather calm, stoic individual, as seen when he calmly explains the origin of the Ignis and his father's plan during his confrontation with Yusaku.
While Dueling, he shows loads of confidence and plans ahead well, often confusing his opponents with a seemingly inefficient strategy. Varis tends to belittle 'unworthy' opponents at times, which Gore noted as arrogance. When pushed into a corner, Varis pushes himself to his limits only to win, even if that harms him.
In season two, Varis retains much of his original personality but is more level-headed and serious about his objective due to his father's sacrifice. His sense of humanity is more pronounced as well as he showed regret for what happened to Jin Kusanagi, disgust for what Windy did to his Lost Incident partner, and called Lightning unfair for pitting Kolter against Playmaker. He is also considerate and helpful at times as seen when he gave Yusaku a program to protect him from Lightning, and when he ultimately decided to join his faction. He also reveals his identity to Soulburner and the others as well as allowing Frog and Pigeon to follow them, showing that he is willing to place his trust in other people.
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