History Characters / RanmaOneHalfRyogaHibiki

* BetaCouple: With Akari. From what little we see of them, they have a much more functional relationship than any other couple in the series, with Ryōga's [[NoSenseOfDirection terrible sense of direction]] being the only thing getting in their way. Within the massive LoveDodecahedron, they're the only ones to get a nearly definite happy ending.

* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: Brooding Boy to Akari's Gentle Girl.
* BruiserWithASoftCenter: A very good example. Despite being one of the physically strongest characters who tends to think with his fists, he has a very chivalrous side, especially to girls and the weak. This is clearly shown during the moxibustion arc where he is the only one of Ranma's rivals who doesn't take advantage of his weakened state, and actually defends him from the others in a GoThroughMe moment.

* CharacterDevelopment: He is probably the most DynamicCharacter in the series. He starts out as a petty-minded vengeful jerk. Finishes as a shy, well-meaning, noble, pitiable figure who is arguably more of a hero than Ranma is.

* DoggedNiceGuy: He's head over heels for a girl who is unaware of his feelings, only thinks of him as a good friend, and is also in an ArrangedMarriage, and thus he is constantly sending her presents, daydreaming about her, trying to ask her out ([[CannotSpitItOut failing, due to being so very shy]]), and trying to get her to dump her fiancée.

* {{Hunk}}: A handsome, muscular and manly guy, such as the other main male characters.

* MeaningfulName: "Noisy Good Fang", which references his loud-mouthed antics when around Ranma (and the noise he makes when breaking stuff), his visually iconic CuteLittleFangs, and the fact he's really a good guy at heart.

* MistakenForGay: Because of the whole love-inducing fishing rod mess, Akane is lead to think that Ryōga intentionally used the fishing rod on Ranma. It doesn't help that she witnessed his MistakenDeclarationOfLove.

* NoSenseOfDirection: He is practically the TropeCodifier. He seems to always either take the wrong direction (when given the choice between three roads, one of which he's told is right and one of which he's told is wrong, he takes the third road), or take directions too literally (when told to go "straight down the road" to the Seikan Tunnel from Hokkaido, he did just that -- despite the fact the road curved and his route caused him to leap off of the road). His absurd levels of stamina, which lets him run at top speed for literally hours or even days without stopping, as well as being able to plow right through everything in his path, makes this worse, as he can cover distances far sooner than direction-givers might expect and, particularly after learning the Breaking Point, there's literally nothing that can force him to change directions. He's ''so'' predictably late that everyone schedules their meetings with him a week early to allow for a week of him finding his way. A big part of his backstory is that he missed a fight with Ranma because he got lost for three days, despite the place they were supposed to meet was ''behind Ryōga's house''. Is lampshaded in his debut episode, where after explaining his reason for his fight with Ranma, the students who heard the story said the trope namer.

* {{Pressure Point}}s: His Bakusai Tenketsu is basically this, but applied to inanimate objects. Touching rock (and wood, and possibly metal, depending on the continuity) at just the right spot lets him cause it to explode violently, or just crumble into fine dust. He [[YouDidntAsk initially thought]] it would also work [[LudicrousGibs on humans]], prompting a last-minute TrainingFromHell session for Ranma, until Cologne set them both straight.

* StockShonenRival: To contrast his rival, Ranma Saotome, who's happy go-lucky, larger than life, and carefree, Ryōga is very melancholic, [[TheStoic stoic]], and brooding. For a long time there was nothing Ryōga was concerned with more than ''getting even'' with his [[TheRival rival]], but eventually he comes to see there is more to life than this, once he experiences love. Over time the two of them become more akin to friends and even BashBrothers, although they still remain the rivalry and treat one another as {{Worthy Opponent}}s.

* TwiceShy: With Akari; Ryōga is so uncertain of how to respond to somebody expressing an interest in him, and so torn up on if he wants to give up on Akane, that it takes Ranma's intervention for him and Akari to finally hook up together.

* TheThingThatWouldNotLive: Ryōga technically lives at the Tendō household as P-Chan, where he mooches food, shelter, and even affection courtesy of Akane, who is blissfully unaware that her pet piglet is Ryōga. Given the circumstance, this can irritate Ranma so much sometimes that he often threatens Ryōga with spilling the beans to Akane.

%%* SuperWeight: Level 3.

* TheEeyore: Ryōga is sensitive and melancholic in personality... The flipside of course is that his life really ''is'' terrible -- at least until he meets Akari -- and he still [[{{Determinator}} perseveres]].

* FinishingMove: The perfected Shishi Houkoudan. Ryouga unleashes a massive pillar of [[AngstNuke heavy emotions]] into the sky. It then comes crashing down on himself and his opponent(s), but since Ryouga is emotionally hollow at that moment, he is uneffected. (Suddenly fill him with emotion at that moment, however, and he will be crushed by his own attack, as well.)

-->'''Ranma''': Ryouga, can I ask you something? Just how many bandanas are you wearing!?

* WowingCthulhu: When Ryōga momentarily gets killed by Lime. [[OutOfBodyExperience He enters the afterlife where he meets his deceased grandparents]], who convince him to go back. His spirit then returns to his body where he unleashes the most powerful KiManipulation ever shown in the series which crushes Lime. [[PhysicalGod Herb]], the most powerful Ki user in the series, watches from a distance and is utterly impressed.

* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: With Akane, as she's a violent, tomboy while he's a shy and hopeless romantic. In the manga, Ranma once comments that "Ryōga would be twice the man he is, if he was half as manly as Akane."

* MistakenDeclarationOfLove: When Ryōga ''finally'' worked up the nerve to tell Akane how he feels, his declaration is accidentally given to Ranma, who doesn't take it well.

** During the Koi-Rod of Love story arc, Ryōga never does admit his own fault for trying to use the titular LovePotion on Akane and causing troubles by hitting Ranma by mistake.

* TheBigGuy: In terms of raw physical strength, there's no one on the heroes side which matches Ryōga. He's [[SuperStrength strong enough]] to toss aside boulders, crush concrete and metal with arms and hands, and runs through walls as if they are tissue paper. His Bakusai Tenketsu training also made him virtually NighInvulnerable and he can shrug off all but the most powerful attacks.

* CatchPhrase: "Where am I now?!"

* MessyPig: Zigzagged. He's actually pretty clean as a pig, but he certainly makes things more complicated.

* BadassBaritone: One of the deeper males in the original Japanese, as provided by Creator/KoichiYamadera. It suits his Byronic personality.

** Ranma once tried loosely dressing up Katsunishiki (Akari's GIANT champion sumo wrestling pig) and claimed that "Akane" wants to kiss him. Fortunately it turned out even Ryōga wasn't that dumb to get fooled by this one.

* PoorCommunicationKills: If he'd just told Ranma about why exactly he wanted to get revenge on him, then the incident would've been solved in his debut episode. But he never tells Ranma about how he accidentally knocked him into one of the cursed springs in Jusenkyo.
* PowerIncontinence: Between his prodigious strength, and the ease with which he'll let his emotions get the best of him, getting Ryōga overly emotional about something often leads to him breaking things. Besides regularly tearing through walls, knocking over power poles and poking holes through concrete walls when his mind wanders, he's also done stunts like send Ranma (disguised as Ryōga's fictitious sister) flying across the room with a gentle poke to the forehead from his index finger due to Ranma's teasing Ryōga about him and Akane being a couple.

* BlessedWithSuck: As troublesome as his P-Chan form has proven to be, he finds it a great way to get closer to girls and relishes such moments. Of course, that particular situation happens relatively rarely, and otherwise it's a big fat "abuse me!" sign. Adding insult to injury, ut of all the people that transform in the series, Ryōga is the only one who is effectively helpless and vulnerable when transformed; even Mousse is dangerous in duck form, unlike Ryōga.

* BlessedWithSuck: As troublesome as his P-Chan form has proven to be, he finds it a great way to get closer to girls and relishes such moments. Of course, that particular situation happens relatively rarely, and otherwise it's a big fat "abuse me!" sign.

Ranma Saotome's most persistent rival, a boy with a [[NoSenseOfDirection notoriously bad sense of direction]] whom he met in junior high school. During that time, they had an ongoing rivalry about who would get bread at lunch; Ryōga never won, and eventually got sick of this and challenged Ranma to a duel in the vacant lot behind Ryōga's house. Unfortunately, it took four days for Ryōga, and Ranma had left after the third day of waiting. For this, Ryōga started to chase Ranma and ended up in China, all the way to Jusenkyo, where he was knocked into the Spring of Drowned Piglet by a crazy girl chasing a panda -- which is why he blames his curse on Ranma's "cowardice". Ironically, Ranma actually ''was'' responsible, as it was he and Genma in their cursed forms who had caused Ryōga to fall in. Eventually, Ryōga tracked Ranma down to Nerima, where things got even more complicated when Ryōga fell in love with Akane, who was oblivious to this. Eventually, the two mellowed it out, though they still fought -- as much for their mutual respect of each other's skills as because of their irritation, given Ranma's love of manipulating and poking fun at Ryōga. Ryōga's curse allows him to masquerade as "P-Chan", the adopted pet of Akane Tendō. Ryōga has a noble heart and usually means well, but he is also driven almost entirely by his whims and emotions; he can just as easily beat Ranma up as he can save his life.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: The source of his rivalry with Ranma partly stems from the fact that Ranma one-ups him in almost every encounter they have.

* BadassesWearBandanas: Always seen wearing his leopard bandana, which he can [[ImprobableWeaponUser use as a weapon]].

* BetaCouple: With Akari. From what little we see of them, they have a much more functional relationship than any other couple in the series, with Ryōga's terrible sense of direction being the only thing getting in their way. Within the massive LoveDodecahedron, they are the only ones to get a nearly definite happy ending.
* BettyAndVeronica: The Betty to Ranma's Veronica.

* SpearCounterpart: Suffice to say, he and Ukyō share a lot in common.

* WeaponOfChoice: Primarily his [[ParasolOfPain bamboo umbrella]].

* BalefulPolymorph: He is comparatively helpless as P-Chan (outside of one chapter where he is given greater strength even in pig form). He meets Cologne when she chucks him into a ''pot of boiling water'' and likewise Shampoo tries to serve him (still alive, thankfully) on a plate to Ranma in their first encounter. In the anime it is also established from the onset that predators and hunters regularly try to eat him.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Zigzagged by the manga's ending. He hasn't found a cure for his BalefulPolymorph curse yet, nor has he definitively established himself as Ranma's martial art's superior, but he's accepted a place as Ranma's preeminent rival and he's found a mutual abiding love with Akari Unryū. Indeed, one can argue that Ryōga is the ''only'' main character who has anything close to a happy ending by the manga's conclusion. Even Ranma and Akane are still a ways off from Ryōga's level of closure, given how the wedding went bust and they were shown blaming each other for it afterwards.

* LoveMakesYouDumb: Ryōga's romantic desires sometimes run away with his common sense. There have been several occasions when he's actually gotten a chance to take Akane on a date, only for him to ruin things because he gets so overexcited; he once contemplates staying in a {{Kimodameshi}} forever because Akane is asking him for protection while they are there; and he only allows Akane to think of him as P-chan because he's got a crush on her and he believes he can use it to protect her... despite being more or less harmless in [[BalefulPolymorph piglet form]].

* SuperGullible: If there's one {{curse}} that's less apparent than his [[BalefulPolymorph pig form]] or his NoSenseOfDirection, then it's his over naive and trusting nature that constantly makes him everyone's victim. Ranma in particular will repeatedly exploit this using his girl form. to either spy on him, dupe him, or just annoy him for kicks. You'd think Ryōga would eventually learn to recognize her face, or her voice -- but he never does. Even when Ranma's using little more than a pair of glasses as a disguise. The most egregious instance being when Ranma is even able to convince Ryōga that she is his sister. Ryōga figures it is plausible, given he hasn't seen his family in years, due to his poor sense of direction.