"This world is so messed up! The weak are left to fight for themselves, while rotten adults get away with whatever they want!"
Name: Ryuji Sakamoto
Code Name: Skull
Alias: Vulgar Boy/Blondie/The Vulgar Ape/Track Traitor/The obnoxious blond one/Sprintmaster Sakamoto/Ryuji-paisen/Boneface/Skeleton
Height: 170 cm (5'7")
Weight: 61 kg (135 lbs)
Hair Color: Naturally Black/Dyed Blond
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Ryuji has short spiky dyed blond hair and dark brown eyes. According to Sadayo Kawakami, his hair is naturally black. He has a noticeable widow's peak and his eyebrows are unusual in that he lacks the outer sides. He is shown to be muscular.
He wears his winter school uniform a bit modified. It consists of the standard black blazer, unbuttoned to reveal a yellow t-shirt with a comic style star symbol and the word 'ZOMG!' He has plaid trousers rolled up to reveal his ankles. His pants have black suspenders that hang down instead of being worn on his shoulders. He has a white belt. His white sneakers have a rising sun flag motif. His summer school uniform is the same as his winter's, except his yellow t-shirt is replaced with a red one reading 'NO MO RULES' and he no longer wears his blazer.
On his days off in winter, he wears a purple hoodie with red lining and the number '777' on the back, a black shirt with a yellow frowning face, dark pants and yellow sneakers. In the summertime he wears a yellow tank top that reads 'ON UR MARK!' with red shoes prints, khaki shorts, and blue sneakers. He wears a chain necklace and white belt as accessories.
During Persona 5 Royal's third semester, Ryuji wears a bright blue jacket over a red sweatshirt with a graffiti paint design, a camouflage-patterned scarf with black pants and blue sneakers. At school, he wears his uniform the same, but with his pants rolled down, a new red sweater with a black skull and the word 'NOBODY' on the front underneath the blazer, a blue shirt and purple sneakers.
His Thief outfit consists of matching black jacket with elbow pads and what appears to be a metal vertebral column attached to its back, pants with knee pads and a double-sided holster belt with ammo on each side, a red ascot, combat boots, a pair of yellow gloves with metal knuckle protectors and a skull mask.
Due to his injury, he walks and runs with a slight limp, and occasionally trips if he overexerts himself.
In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, he retains his Shujin Academy uniform except he wears a yellow shirt with a black "X" design and a red tattered scarf, and yellow and light blue sneakers with matching laces. He wears sunglasses on his head, a golden chain bracket on his right wrist and metal bracket on his left wrist.
In Persona 5 Strikers, he wears a red tank-top, a dog-tag chain necklace, puffy black sweatpants that go down to his shins, a camouflage-pattern belt and a pair of yellow shoes. While at the festivals, he wears a beige yukata and a mask on the right side of his head. On the beach in Okinawa, he wears yellow-orange swim trunks with a palm tree design. In the spring, he wears a khaki coat.
Ryuji is known as a disruptive "problem student" at school whose bad behavior causes all sorts of trouble for the teachers. He is quite proud of his status as a self-proclaimed "troublemaker" and his rebellious, mischievous and disobedient nature are the perfect qualities to be a Phantom Thief. He can sometimes be vulgar and aggressive, as shown in his early interactions with Yusuke Kitagawa and Makoto Niijima. He is also rather short-tempered, easily taking offense from even the slightest of comments. That said, he will never resort to violence without being legitimately provoked.
He is very straightforward when it comes to expressing his feelings, especially in regards to his hatred of selfish adults and authority figures who abuse their power. He is deeply empathetic when it comes to the plight of others: simply listening to the protagonist's story of how he got arrested makes him extremely angry, and hearing about Kamoshida's sexual abuse greatly upsets him.
Ryuji can be clumsy and overly energetic sometimes. He has a habit of yelling constantly, despite frequent warnings from Morgana to keep his voice down, which usually results in loud outbursts that often includes accidentally revealing himself and his friends as the Phantom Thieves. This, combined with his frequent density, causes him to be viewed as an idiot by his peers, Morgana in particular and makes him a source of comedic relief in various situations. Ryuji also occasionally has a hard time accepting blame for things, though it's less he doesn't recognize when he's at fault so much as he hates being held solely responsible for an incident when he feels he isn't the only issue, or if it was simply beyond the group's control. Ryuji's academic abilities are outright questionable at best and horrid at worst, as he more often than not, gets bad grades from exams, usually by oversleeping or refusing to study at all.
In reality, his seemingly delinquent-like behavior is merely a coping mechanism for the loss of his reputation to Kamoshida's tyranny and his inability to continue becoming an athlete after the injury he suffered at Kamoshida's hand. Deep down, he is nothing more than a kind and altruistic boy. He deeply cares for his mother and takes fervent effort as an athlete to relieve her worries. He also reveals that his father was an alcoholic who beat him and his mother and then left, so his mother is the only family he has. When he tells the group about the aftermath of his confrontation with Kamoshida, he is broken when he admits that, following a meeting with the school authorities, she apologized to him for being a single mother and not giving him a strong father-figure in life. He even calls himself a "bad son," due to him messing up his efforts to make things easier for his mother. He's generally friendly and on good terms with everyone in the Phantom Thieves (despite frequent bickering), particularly Ann, with who he shares somewhat of a love-hate relationship.
Ryuji cares a great deal for the well-being of others around him, such as when he attempts to help end the abuse of the track team, even going as far as letting them beat him up in an attempt to air out their frustrations. He also has a strong sense of right and wrong. When Morgana warns him and the protagonist that stealing Kamoshida's treasure may result in his death, Ryuji is shocked and reluctant to take that risk, believing that he and the protagonist going around secretly doing whatever they wanted would make them no different from Kamoshida. He changes his mind after Shiho Suzui's attempted suicide, but even after it's done, he wonders if it really was for the best. After a chance encounter with Masayoshi Shido, however, Ryuji comes up with the idea to continue as the Phantom Thieves, in order to get rid of adults who have gone unpunished for so long and give courage to all those who need it. Furthermore, Ryuji is a rather forgiving person, as evident by his willingness to help out his former teammates on the track team despite them viewing him as a traitor, as well as being the first to forgive Makoto for getting the team blackmailed, despite having despised her up until then. He even tells Natsuhiko Nakanohara that someone treating you like dirt doesn't give you the right to do the same to them. In Strikers, Ryuji becomes one of Sophia's closest friends, and he came to care a lot about her, enough to give the mysterious voice in the Okinawa Jail a tongue lashing for having insulted Sophia.
Unfortunately, Ryuji eventually gets caught off guard by the Conspiracy's deceit. It comes to a head after the Phantom Thieves are framed down by Shido, resulting in him breaking down and calling himself "an idiot" for his past behavior. He's able to eventually reconcile his weakness after talking with the protagonist and striving to become a better person after the protagonist makes him realize he can still change as a person.
Hobby-wise, apart from being on the track team, he also does muscle training. He can drink a 500mL bottle of carbonated water in one go which he did as training during his track and field club days. When he was active, he could also do 1000mL bottles. He is often impatient and has a habit of tapping the ground with his toes when he's bored, and prefers to get "straight to the point" during conversations. He claims he never reads, and his artbook profile claims he only reads manga. When it comes to food, he's particularly fond of ramen, to the point of being fussy about the flavor and texture of the noodles. Though not a cook by any means, Ryuji displays some cooking skills, as he mentions a recipe involving combining of honey and sliced lemons as a way of restoring stamina, something his mother taught him.
Ryuji is also quite perverted; For example, he is one of the boys who joined the "Operation Maidwatch" which resulted in Sadayo Kawakami, his homeroom teacher being called via the maid service. This is further reinforced later on, he also stares at Ann in the Mona car while the group were traveling through the desert in Futaba's Palace. When Ann confronts him about this later, he doesn't even try to deny it, saying that "it was a great view."
"Yo! Having the gang together again be nice!"
"Having an Ann or Makoto as a GF would be hella cool!"
