marufuji ryou
 Name kanji: ŠÛ“¡—º
Age: 18
Dorm: Former Obelisk Blue
Deck type: Cyber Dragon, Cyber Ura
Aliases: Kaiser, Hell Kaiser
Family: Marufuji Shou (younger brother)
Dub name: Zane Truesdale
Voice: Maeda Tsuyoshi (Japanese), Scottie Ray (American)
Quiet and almost hostile-looking, Ryou is someone many would mistake for a callous, aloof bastard. But this is not the case; he duels with respect yet still remains powerful. He uses a mighty Cyber Dragon deck, his key card being Cyber End Dragon. He is overall a nice guy, offering comfort to Asuka while her brother was missing and becoming a friendly dueling rival with his best friend Fubuki.
 Ryou's relationship with Shou is a relationship full of misunderstanding and lessons to be learned. After the incident in their childhood in which Ryou taught Shou not to be so arrogant and disrespectful to duelists, Shou feels much more pressured to do his best, even with his drop in confidence. He doesn't seem to comprehend that Ryou is trying to teach him a lesson in a distant, impersonal way. Ryou still does love his brother, but prefers to let Shou learn his life lessons on his own rather than show him in a hands-on sort of way.
 Juudai and Ryou are pretty much friendly rivals, and they duel twice: the first time, Juudai duels Ryou to understand Shou's pain, and the second time, it was an end-of-the-year duel in which Ryou chose Juudai as an opponent. The first time ended up being a loss for Juudai, but the second time, Juudai came from a sure loss to an impressive draw in a matter of moments. The duel ended with both of them lying on the floor, laughing. Ryou was also a great rival to Fubuki, according to Misawa, although the rest of Juudai's friends find that a bit hard to believe after Fubuki's performance in the idol duel.
 Ryou is two years ahead of the main cast, in his third and final year while Juudai and friends are in their first. He graduates at the end of the first season, moving on to the pro leagues. In his first pro league match, he loses to Edo Phoenix in an embarrassing defeat due to overconfidence and underestimation of the opponent, thus ending his pro league career. He grows depressed for a while, until Monkey Saruyama, a suspicious-looking sponsor, offers him a spot in the underground duels. He warily accepts, and faces off against Mad Dog Inukai in a vicious duel that has been set up so that when life points drop, an electric current flows through the player's body. Ryou emerges victorious with his new monster Chimeratech Over Dragon, and undergoes a startling transformation from then on -- he becomes Hell Kaiser Ryou, a ruthless, selfish duelist with no respect for his cards or his opponents.
 When the main cast learns about this during the Genex tournament, Fubuki decides to take matters into his own hands, and turns to Darkness for help. He dresses in Darkness' clothing and uses Darkness' Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon deck to duel Ryou, but with Ryou's new Cyber Ura deck that happens to be superbly effective against dragon decks, Fubuki loses, and Ryou doesn't even take the Genex medal from Fubuki. He simply walks away and right past Shou, who was watching the duel, not even acknowledging his existance. Shou decides he needs to duel his brother to get him back, but ends up failing just like Fubuki, and Ryou quite simply turns and walks away from him without a second thought. It's then that Juudai swears he will bring Hell Kaiser back from hell.
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