Ryo Matsunaga

**Ryo Matsunaga** (松永 涼, ***Ryo Matsunaga***?) is one of the characters available in *THE iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls* and *THE iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage*. Her theme color is purplish black and her idol type is cool.

## Bio

### Personality

Ryo is initially very distant, only seeing her relationship to the Producer and other staff as a professional one, and acting cold and distant to her coworkers. She also used to think that idols are a joke, nothing to be taken seriously. But as she becomes an idol, she opens up to the people around her and realizes what the Producer saw in her to become an idol, and became friendlier. She also finds out that idoling is an intense and difficult job and that she should be more respectful to them, as well as her band. She shows a motherly side to the younger idols, particularly Koume and Chie, and often puts other lives over her own when they are in trouble.

Presumably during her childhood, Ryo surprisingly used to be a princess type who was only interested in classical music. She does not like that moment of her life, as she describes it as "stiff" and "restricted", and thus joined a rock band to get rid of that image.

### Relationships

* Koume Shirasaka: Close friends and unitmates in Eldritch Loreteller.
* Takumi Mukai, Rina Fujimoto, & Natsuki Kimura: Friends and unitmates in Enjin.
* Aki Yamato: Friends and unitmates in both Enjin and Ember Last.
* Yuka Nakano, Yuki Himekawa, & Miku Maekawa: Friends and unitmates in Ember Last.
* Rin Shibuya & Chiyo Shirayuki: Friends and unitmates in Sirius Chord.
* Kanade Hayami: Friends and unitmates in Dea Aurora.
* Chie Sasaki: Ryo acts like a mother figure to Chie.
* Eimi Nagai, Sayu Hashizume, & Mana Yoneda: Her former band, More Than Anubis, which she used to be the vocalist of. She used to spend all of her Christmases with them before becoming an idol.

### Etymology

**Matsunaga** (松永, ***Matsunaga***?): **Matsu** (松) means "pine tree", while **Naga** (永) means "eternity".
**Ryo** (涼, ***Ryo***?) means "refreshing; nice; cool".
## History

It is suggested in dialogue that Ryo is from an upper-class family that exposed her to classical and mass music in her childhood, which caused her to become and ojou-sama type who looked down on other genres of music. She hated that time of her life, even as a kid, describing it as "stiff, cramped, and confined", and she would not like to go to that life again.

The thing that make her break out of this life was a song, a rock song. With the flip of a switch, Ryo realized her emotions and decided to rebel from her strict life, finding solace in popular music like rock, and eventually started her own band, More Than Anubis, as the vocalist and songwriter. But she was sad that the group was never popular. One night, the Producer sees one of the band's shows and decides to scout her. He offers the chance to Ryo, which, while she was skeptical about the proposal at first, is encouraged by her fellow band members to puruse her dream of singing on a wider stage.

## Trivia

* Ryo is one of many idols in *iDOLM@STER* to be from Tokyo. Other idols from Tokyo include but are not limited to Miria Akagi, Kanade Hayami, Karen Hojo, and Akiha Ikebukuro.
* Ryo loves horror movies but she has a fear of paranormal phenomenons. Luckily, later on in the story, she becomes good friends with Koume's ghost friend.
* She shares earrings with Koume Shirasaka.