Ritsu Kageyama

Ritsu Kageyama (影山 律, Kageyama Ritsu) is a first-year student at Salt Middle School, the son of Mr. Kageyama and Mrs. Kageyama and the younger brother of Mob.

Appearance


Ritsu is a seventh-grade student with black hair slightly longer than Mob's hair, which appears slightly disheveled. His eyes are much more expressive than his brother's, with his irises being slightly larger, and he has good looks. Despite being younger than Mob, Ritsu is slightly taller than him. He is also considered rather handsome.

His school uniform is a black gakuran tsume-eri outfit with the top having a standing collar buttoning down from top-to-bottom.

Personality
Ritsu is a very clever boy who serves on the student council, where 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 frustrated at his brother because he was naturally born with his psychic powers. He is a perfectionist but also has a dark side that mainly develops when he obtains his psychic powers.

Even though he loves his brother very much, he has an inferiority complex toward him, which is ironic, since Mob also has an inferiority complex toward Ritsu. However, this concerns his academic skills and social charisma. Ritsu always has been 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. It's why they could never have a normal brotherly relationship, like having 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, he hugs his brother in relief, leaving Ritsu shocked due to his brother's affection despite his terrible attitude towards him. After hearing Mob praise him for his intelligence, he's brought to tears and thanks his brother, restoring their relationship and improving upon it.

Once he uses his psychic powers and becomes more powerful, the power begins to go to his head, becoming 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 he can be pretty jumpy at times.

Big Cleanup Arc
Ritsu went to the Awakening Lab after Kenji mistook him for Mob. He was relieved that the teen espers there did not have awe-inspiring psychic abilities.

Ritsu took part in Shinji's Big Cleanup plan, performing immoral deeds like planting evidence and blatantly pretending to find the evidence he planted. Tenga was one of those most brutally victimized. 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 take control fully. With the help of Dimple's fine-tuning, Ritsu could 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 Teruki 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 beat up some delinquents, Teru brought Mob over to stop him. Ritsu said terrible things to Mob; however, Mob forgave him. Megumu 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 ended up being held captive in a room that nullified psychic powers. During the rest of the night's events, Ritsu made observations and took a kidney punch from Muraki.

Ritsu and Shinji later apologized to Tenga and the other victims of the Big Cleanup.

World Domination Arc
Ritsu noticed that 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 to convince Ritsu and his parents to leave before he 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 skilled at a myriad of sports and sprints; placing 9th at Salt Middle School's marathon. He is also an excellent student academically and is involved with extracurricular activities such as the student council. Interestingly, he can overcome Dimple's control during possession and can instead use him to help better channel his latent psychic powers. However, this was when Dimple was significantly weakened. Once Ritsu can access his psychic powers thanks to Dimple, it's revealed that he has tremendous potential, but is still incapable of accessing fully. He eventually becomes less reliant on Dimple and is now a proficient esper, able to perform simple yet efficient techniques such as telekinesis and to create barriers. However, he is still not as strong as Teruki, 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!"

Etymology

 * The name Ritsu means "law, commandment, discipline, control" (律).
 * Ritsu's surname Kageyama means "shadow, shade, other side" (影) (kage) and "mountain, hill" (山) (yama).

Notes & Trivia

 * Ritsu's hobby is writing in his diary.
 * Ritsu's favorite foods are tofu and boiled pork, and his least favorite food is pork feet.
 * Apparently, Ritsu barely listens to music, but his favorite movie genre is human dramas.
 * Despite being hard to get close to, Ritsu has a lot of secret fans.
 * Ritsu is very similar to Suiryu from ONE's other work, One-Punch Man, as they both have similar faces, hairstyles and they want to live fun lives.
 * Ritsu's English dub voice actor Max Mittelman also voices Saitama, the main character of ONE's other manga One-Punch Man.
 * Ritsu would prefer to study indoors during summer break, and occasionally be tempted by Mob to do things like buying a T-shirt at a local volume retailer.