in order to grow up

NAME: Skarme
AGE: 25
CONTACT: blitzente
CHARACTERS IN GAME: n/a


CHARACTER NAME: Ritsu Kageyama
AGE: 13
CANON Mob Psycho 100
CANON POINT Post webcomic
HISTORY: Fanwiki link.
PERSONALITY:
Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama, the young hero of Mob Psycho 100, is the world's most terrifyingly powerful psychic. Ritsu Kageyama is Shigeo's younger brother, and this fact puts much of his character into context. At first, the two of them seem to be opposites by design - where Shigeo is a chronic underachiever who struggles to socialise, Ritsu is presented as a model student, son and sibling. Intelligent, athletic, a respected member of the student council, yet always modest and dutiful, he appears to lead the untroubled life that the awkward Shigeo wishes he had.

Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a character. Still, it's hard to diagnose the nature of Ritsu's inner thoughts just from talking to him. Despite his many admirers at school, he keeps most people at arm's length. When someone does sit him down for a conversation, they often find that his serious demeanour turns outright cold. The boy is in fact decidedly judgmental towards everyone he meets, and makes surprisingly little secret of it; while he can mask his big mouth with politeness if he has to, he would much rather bluntly point out the faults he perceives in other people than betray any of his own.

Yet, in a way, his colder tendencies are key to figuring out what really goes on inside Ritsu's adolescent head. It's notable that even on his worst days, he never elevates himself above the people he criticises or pretends to be immune to his own perfectionist expectations. The truth is the opposite - thanks to growing up alongside Shigeo, Ritsu suffers from one hell of an inferiority complex. Once upon a time he was traumatised by a childhood accident involving Shigeo's powers, and over the intervening years his fear of it happening again mutated into an acute sense of worthlessness. None of his natural talents mean a thing compared to the knowledge that his brother could rip him apart in a heartbeat, even without meaning or wanting to. Why should such an insignificant person get to work through their emotions externally? Best to keep them locked up inside, in case any of them provoke Shigeo into another rampage.

The upshot of this is that Ritsu has no chill whatsoever, even by teenage standards. Whatever he feels, he feels intensely, with limited ability to truly calm himself down. As an example of how rapidly his emotions can go off the rails, MP100 first properly introduces Ritsu right as his abovementioned coping mechanisms begin to fail. The story arc snowballs from his well-intentioned desire to make school a more comfortable place for Shigeo, resulting in him helping a corrupt student council member remove other students from the school on false charges. Bottling up his negative feelings is no longer enough to keep his guilt and stress in check, and he finds that he's unable to process them at all except through mood swings extreme enough to awaken his latent psychic powers; everyday rudeness is no longer a sufficient outlet for him, so instead his reckless streak goes out of control, sending him on a violent power trip that only Shigeo's stubbornly unconditional acceptance can break through.

That said, not everything intense about Ritsu is negative. His love for and dedication to his brother is real, far eclipsing any lingering speck of blame for their shared past trauma; when the two of them work through their mutual fear of letting each other down, they develop a bond of understanding that not even a deity's brainwashing can undo. His fundamental honesty turns out to be much more important to him than keeping up appearances, for better or for worse. The sense of duty that figures heavily into his honour student persona is genuine too, spurring him to do what he thinks is right. Under pressure, while he can startle easily at times, he shows a precocious ability to take initiative anyway and think tactically on even footing with adults. Most of all, once he learns to trust, he trusts fiercely: first his brother, then the friends he begins to make after emerging from his emotional cage, and finally himself. His own mental or physical safety be damned, there's very little he isn't willing to do for the few people who he thinks have earned it.

In short, Ritsu is a multilayered take on MP100's main theme: no human being is an island. He demonstrates the danger of taking on too much emotional burden in the name of lightening somebody else's, but also how a person can begin the long process of healing, provided they can find in themselves the ability to open up just a little. The Ritsu who stands up to the natural disaster caused by his brother's fractured psyche near the end of the webcomic has not shed all of the insecurities he displays during his first arc - if anything, he's much more open about them. But by the end, he knows that his connections to other people can keep him afloat as he continues to mature, and that makes all the difference.

CANON POWERS:
Like many characters in his canon, Ritsu has psychic powers fuelled by the strength of his emotions. The main ability he demonstrates is psychokinesis: he can remotely lift, manipulate or throw pretty much any nearby object he can see, with little regard for its weight. He tends to employ his psychokinesis for its brute force, for instance twisting metal and tossing rocks or people around, but he is perfectly capable of finer control, such as strangling people with their own neckties. He is a violent child sometimes. :(

The other ability he prominently uses in combat is the creation of psychic barriers, invisible bubbles or walls that can block a certain amount of psychic power and/or physical impact before breaking. Ritsu can form a barrier large enough to protect several people besides himself, but must drop all barriers in order to use his psychokinesis, since using multiple esper abilities simultaneously requires either much more raw power or specific training.

In addition, he can see psychic auras, sense when someone or something is using psychic powers nearby, and physically interact with spirits. He doesn't always gauge opponents' strength as accurately as more experienced espers, however.

Outside of his psychic powers, he is an ordinary 13-year-old boy.

OTHER: he will hoard spoons given half an opportunity and you cannot stop him


CRAU INFO: n/a
MAGIC ABILITY: Illusion projection: He will be able to project a transparent field, about a 5 metre radius centred on his body, within which any image of his choice can appear (including "nothing", rendering something in the field invisible). These images look solid but are insubstantial, so anyone reaching through them will feel nothing but air. Maintaining the field causes physical strain similar to lifting a heavy box, in addition to the mental focus required to create images. Strong emotion of any kind may expand the size of the field up to 10 metres, but will cause some visual distortion inside it, making the illusions easier to recognise as fake.
ANY WEAPONS/MAGICAL ITEMS?: n/a
ANY PETS?: n/a


LINKED SAMPLE: TDM thread