Ritsu Kageyama

Ritsu Kageyama (影山律, Kageyama Ritsu) is a first-year student at Salt Middle School and the younger brother of the main protagonist, Mob.

Appearance
Ritsu has black hair that is slightly longer than Mob's and appears slightly dishevelled. His school uniform is a black gakuran tsume-eri outfit with the top having a standing collar buttoning down from top-to-bottom. His eyes are much more expressive than his brother's, with his irises being slightly larger. Despite being younger than Mob, Ritsu is slightly taller than him.

Personality
Ritsu is very clever and serves on the student council. He excels in academics and everything else he tries, but none of that matters to him as much as having psychic powers. Before he awoke his own psychic powers, he longed for the esper abilities his brother always had and was frustrated by his own inability to do things like bend spoons and held some frustration at his brother because he was naturally born with his psychic powers. He is a perfectionist, but also has a dark side that especially develops when he obtains his psychic powers.

Even though he loves his brother very much, he actually has an inferiority complex towards him, which is ironic, since Mob also has an inferiority complex towards Ritsu, although this is in regards to his academic skills and social charisma. For Ritsu, he was always envious of Mob and, according to him, he convinced himself it was admiration over his brother's psychic abilities. But in reality, Ritsu was always scared of his brother and what he would do if he ever got stressed out, which was why they could never have a normal brotherly relationship and have fights as brothers, since he'd be defenseless against Mob. He later tells his brother that he's lost all interest in their relationship and the friendship they have is over, although Mob can instantly tell this is a lie. Later on, when Ritsu is captured and Mob reunites with him, Mob hugs his brother in relief, leaving Ritsu shocked due to the affection is brother shows despite his terrible attitude towards him. In the end, after hearing Mob praise him for his intelligence, he's brought to tears and thanks his brother, restoring their relationship and actually improving upon it.

Once he uses his psychic powers and becomes more powerful, the power begins to go to his head, and he becomes even more ruthless and unrelenting than ever before. This was seen when he mercilessly defeated several gang members that came to attack him, and later when he meets his brother again, telling him about the inferiority and fear he felt towards him and going so far as to say he lost all interest in their relationship. But after being captured and showered with praise from Mob, who goes so far as to say there's nobody he admires more than Ritsu, this power-hungry side changes and he accepts that having psychic powers does not mean everything.

Unlike Mob, he finds it okay to use psychic violence against people when necessary. In the end, his brother is more important to him than anyone or anything else. He is apparently serious but can be quite jumpy at times.

Big Cleanup Arc
Ritsu went to the Awakening Lab after Mitsuura mistook him for Mob. He was relieved to find that the teen espers there did not have very impressive psychic abilities.

Ritsu took part in Kamuro's Big Cleanup plan, performing such immoral deeds as planting evidence and blatantly pretending to find the evidence he planted. Onigawara was one of those most brutally victimised. His guilt accumulated to overwhelming levels and led directly to his psychic awakening. He encountered Dimple when the latter was loitering in front of the Kageyama residence. After some convincing, Ritsu let Dimple possess him, but Dimple was too weak to fully take control. With the help of Dimple's fine-tuning, Ritsu was able to control his new psychic power. He used it to bend a ton of spoons, beat up a ton of delinquents, and impress everyone at the Awakening Lab.

Ritsu met Teru and was more intimidated by the latter's tall wig than by his psychic power, even though Teru would have won a fight between them. Later, when Ritsu was beating up some delinquents, Teru brought Mob over to stop him. Ritsu said terrible things to Mob, however Mob forgave him. Koyama appeared, tried to kidnap Ritsu, got severely injured by Mob, and successfully kidnapped Ritsu.

7th Division Arc
Ritsu and the Awakening Lab kids escaped from their cell at the 7th branch of Claw. They were in the middle of escaping the facility when they encountered Sho. Ritsu told the others to go on without him. They went on without him, and Ritsu immediately got his ass kicked. Mob soon found him unconscious, and both of them ended up being held captive in a room that nullified psychic powers. During the rest of the night's events, all Ritsu did was make observations and take a kidney punch from Muraki.

Ritsu and Kamuro later apologised to Onigawara and the other victims of the Big Cleanup.

World Domination Arc
Ritsu noticed Mob was training hard for the school marathon, so he did some of his brother's assigned chores. Ritsu ended up placing 9th in the marathon. That night, Sho appeared at his front door, convinced Ritsu and his parents to leave, and proceeded to set their house on fire.

When Claw set their world domination plan in motion, Ritsu accompanied Sho on his mission to take down his father.

Powers & Abilities
Ritsu is very athletic, being good at sports and sprints; apparently he is quite a fast runner. He is also an academically accomplished student, being known on the honor roll and currently in student council. He was noted by Shinji to be one of the smartest in the nation for his age, which is quite an accomplishment. Interestingly, he is able to overcome Dimple's control during possession and can instead use him to help better channel his latent psychic powers, although this. Once Ritsu is able to access his psychic powers thanks to Dimple, it's revealed that Ritsu possesses tremendous potential that he still has yet to fully access. He eventually becomes less reliant on Dimple and is a proficient esper, able to perform simple yet efficient techniques such as telekinesis and creating barriers. However, he is still not as strong as Hanazawa, who overwhelmed him initially with his psychic energy, and was also defeated by Sho, although Sho admitted that Ritsu's psychic abilities weren't bad. His psychic aura is blue, similar to his brother Mob's.

Quotes

 * Catchphrase: "In order to grow up"
 * "Care to enlighten me?"
 * "That's so low..."
 * "This game will keep running because I am letting it run."
 * "Make me approach my brother's level. Can you do that?"
 * "Dimple... you're really annoying. Say... If I can gain control of this power... can I get rid of you too?"
 * "I do not accept losing to anyone besides my big brother."
 * "Because I'm sick of myself. I just wanted to... feel the 'foolishness' of myself. And to create a new self. Me, as a fool."
 * "I will not judge you people. Because I know now... When people stray from the right path, there usually isn't an actual reason. It's like that even now. I'm facing enemies that lost all will to fight, and I'm moving for the sake of violence. There's no actual reason... This kind of freedom is strong, I'm much freer than all of you... Why? Because I've lost my limits. I've obtained loss!"

Notes & Trivia

 * Ritsu's hobby is writing in his diary.
 * His favourite foods are tofu and boiled pork and his least favourite food is pork feet.
 * Apparently he barely listens to music but his favourite movie genre is human dramas.
 * Despite being hard to get close to, Ritsu has a lot of secret fans.