Ryōma

## Characteristics

* **Name**: Ryōma
* **Codename**: Bruise Brown Muscle Replacement
* **Age**: 29
* **Hair**:
* **Eyes**:
* **Likes**:
* **Dislikes**:
* **Family**:

## Personality

Initially Ryōma was a petty bully, passive-aggressive towards everything and anything related to school he used to bully higher achieving students into doing his own academic work for him in an attempt to assert dominance against those of a weaker build. Ryōma clearly had a brawn over brains approach to his problems and would often rely on intimidation (if not outright physical force) to get by in life while lazily forcing others to do his work for him while he vicariously achieved getting into a prestigious school through other's achievements. He seemed to have a good eye to see who was academically gifted as the first person he was shown to try and coerce at the Army of the Samurai was Natsuhiko Koyama, who would go on to be one of the Five Swords. Ironically the grade and academic-oriented system made Ryōma unable to bully those whom he used to, as relying on others to do his work for him only placed further away from the academic success of the school and eventually forced him to submit to those of a higher grade-point average while he was forced to waste his life away in E Squad. Rather than try to improve his grades for the better Ryōma fully embraced the bitter and depressing atmosphere and took even enjoying the circumstances of E Squad being at the bottom of the military barrel. It could be surmised and sense Ryōma held no hope for himself to improve himself anyway he enjoyed being in a position where his grades were irrelevant and he could still utilize his brawny build and parasitic nature as a bully to achieve some degree of comfort; alternatively he was simply too lazy to try and study and enjoyed being able push his weight around in an environment where he wouldn't be hounded about his grades regardless.

Ryōma was, in short, the very definition of the Main Campus's definition of a E Squad member: a dimwitted problem child who solved his problems though uncivil methods and made use of factors that wouldn't get him far in life to try and get by in school while not trying to improve himself for the better.

Ryōma is the group delinquent and the person who took the longest to adjust to Mako at first; in what could possibly be a reactive attachment disorder towards his philosophy of doing nothing, sheer laziness and/or a refusal to even attempt at improving himself Ryōma desired to defeat Mako, with being number one after beating someone like him as a second motivation, so that E Squad would revert back to the drab and depressing place that it used to be where his laziness thrived and he could breeze by without committing to work. Much like how his bullying nature left him behind those that were smarter then him on the main campus however he soon found himself being left behind in the ever growing and changing E Squad dynamic. Unable to adjust to his surroundings as fast as they were changing was a source of frustrations which only made him deny this change more and the result was that as E Squad was moving more and more ahead in life with greater confidence and abilities thanks to Koro's help as well as Mako's example as motivation to the others, Ryōma was only being left further and further behind because of his lack of desire or vision to change and improve. As noted by Shiro, Ryōma's refusal to follow the lead of E Squad's improvement made him a useful asset as no one would find it odd if he pulled a stunt against Korosensei that would ultimately help Shiro with his assassination attempt. This fault would be told, very bluntly, by Itona right in Terasaka's face and he took it somewhat to heart repeating these words to Nagisa soon afterwards and made him even more committed to Shiro's plan to kill Korosensei.
Deep down Terasaka seems to feel somewhat burdened by his inability to really adapt and change into his new environment: first from his bullying becoming obsolete and now becoming on the other side of the bullying by the very type of people that he used to bully for the reason that he used to bully them to his new, somewhat comfortable life in Class E being yanked from under his feet do to the requirements to kill their teacher and the newfound ambition in his fellow student's psyches in order to both escape from the destitution of the Class E life and pull themselves up to be better at school while he was both to lazy and felt unable to keep up academically which only furthered his frustrations to an eventual boiling point when his friends began to adapt and move ahead of him while he was the only one to remain solely behind. Terasaka blamed this on Korosensei as opposed to him not even trying to get better at school or what he does; in his mind the teacher trying to make them better people and teach them all that he can before the Earth is destroyed is the one at fault instead of him for not even making an attempt at school or in life. Although to be fair Korosensei was a ligitimate threat to the world as they knew it and Terasaka may not have liked that the people who were supposed to be killing him were instead becoming close to him and forming a bond. Once Terasaka did form a bond with him, he voted to kill Korosensei in order to preserve it showing that in the end he truly did value the bond that he had formed with Class E by the end of the year.
Despite this and everything else Terasaka was not without a sense of what was right and wrong, if not something of a sense of empathy towards his classmates, if not as his classmates than as people. He was visibly mortified when he realized that by following Shiro's orders he had placed most of his class in danger and showed signs that his conscious had taken root by the gravity of the situation. Though Terasaka had long been in denial of the reality that he was in the realization of what he had allowed and helped in causing as well as Karma's blunt exposure of Terasaka allowing himself to be strung along like a puppet had allowed to happen forced him to except what he had done and he quickly moved in to rectify his mistakes. This was an important distinction between Terasaka as it showed hints of compassion and remourse and most importantly the will to change. Ultimately it would be this episode that would be the catalyst of Terasaka changing into a better person. The former bully who enjoyed picking on people and relies on others to make plans for him to follow which makes it very easy for others to manipulate him was no more, at least in part as he showed signs of finally turning over a new leaf.
After the incident with Shiro, Terasaka finally opts to change himself for the better and shows signs of trying to be a less lazy and more proactive person over all. One of the biggest and most noteworthy change was his willpower, while initially a rather submissive and weak person towards those of a higher pay role and/or physical and mental strength like Shiro and Karma Terasaka would exhibit a strength of will and character unlike any other in Class E. This was especially true when the rest of his classmates were poisoned and he withstood the same symptoms that had caused more than half of his class to be left incapacitated while he operated in good condition through sheer willpower born from the guilt of what had happened and a desire to improve himself and make it up to his friends and those he had victimized accidentally. Although it is worth noting that the poison in question had been switched with a non-lethal dose. He would begin to give encouraging advice to other characters when they need it most and has acknowledged Class E as a place full of amazing and capable people.
Terasaka would even emulate some of Korosensei's philosophies and the ability to connect to people. It would be Terasaka and his gang that would take Itona under their wing and ultimately help him realize that the power through the tentacles was the wrong way to achieve power and help him let go of it and allow Korosensei to remove the tentacles and save his life.
Terasaka's laziness is his greatest vice, the primary reason for him being in class E is because of his own slothful and parasitic approach to studying and school: getting someone else to do all of his work. Terasaka's lack of effort is the biggest flaw in his person and the main reason for his low grades as despite he has shown himself at least moderately intelligent despite constant quips at his brainpower; with a good grasp on factors and being able to come up with decently effective assassination ploys he demonstrated himself to be good at outside the box thinking and outsourcing for a unpredictable arsenal and was the only student to think of bringing in a foreign weapon (stun guns) to see if that would have any effect on Korosensei. He was able to turn a toy grenade into a working one by utilizing gunpowder and anti-sensei fiber for a rather effective suicidal bombing attack in the first chapter/episode, and when serving as a double agent of Shiro was able to bypass a good chunk of Korosensei's usual defenses. In the Kunugigaoka finals he scored 46th showing that his intelligence was merely underutilized as opposed to being a weakness as was often the butt of many jokes.
Though not as lazy as he once was one negative trait that Terasaka was never able to fully release was his short fuse, he would remain hotheaded and quite slow-witted during these moments when his temper was flared, and would frequently swear, insult people and bang his fists when angry. Though his temper would lessen over the course of the series it was perhaps the one trait that he was never fully shown to conquer. However Terasaka would ultimately become a much happier person the last year he spent in Class E.