Reiji Sakamaki

**Reiji Sakamaki** (逆巻 レイジ, *Sakamaki Reiji*) is the second eldest son of the Sakamaki household. Reiji and his older brother, Shu Sakamaki, are the sons of Beatrix Sakamaki, second wife of Karlheinz Sakamaki, the Vampire King.

## Description

### Appearance

Reiji is a tall, handsome, slender young man. His hair appears differently in different depictions, it it is a dark plum purple which fades lighter towards the ends where the tips around his face and neck. It is almost an inch away from being shoulder length at the back, and it is neatly combed. Reiji's eyes are pale magenta. He wears rectangular glasses with silver frames.

Reiji usually dresses smartly even when in casual clothes, which change across the series.

According to Cordelia, if he weren't so stiff, Reiji would look just like Karlheinz when she first met him. She says that even his eyes are just like Karl's. This was said in an effort to tease Reiji, since he admires his father and dreams to be "him".

### Personality

Reiji has refined manners. Although he might have a polite, sophisticated way of speaking (which the creators describe to be "butler-like"), his words tend to come with a biting edge. He values rules and demands that they are followed by others, no matter how strange they may be. Despite how rigid he may seem, he has a sense of humor. Reiji is portrayed as a no-nonsense character in the anime, yet Reiji's sprites in the games are often grinning. He is viewed as intelligent, yet pessimistic.

Although Reiji is the second son, he takes it upon himself to manage the Sakamaki family as if he were the eldest son. He cleans the house, manages household affairs and funds, and keeps his brothers in line. His role in the family combined with his gentlemanly behavior often causes him to appear more like the eldest instead of his older brother Shu.

Reiji is strict towards himself and others. He is an arrogant man who demands perfection and dislikes submitting to weakness. His personality takes after his mother Beatrix, as he admired her throughout his life as the ideal lady, despite being ignored by her. Reiji orchestrated his mother's assassination in response to years of neglect and bitterness towards his older brother. He wanted her to finally recognize his abilities, and thus killed her so that she would acknowledge him.

In Haunted Dark Bridal, when Reiji realizes that his mother suffered because of Cordelia's behavior, he loses respect for her, and realizes that she was never a perfect woman.

Though Reiji's words are harsh, they shouldn't be taken at face value. Sometimes he says things in order to invoke a reaction that amuses him. He is a sadist like the rest of his brothers, but also has a masochistic side shown in HDB Ending 2. His particular phrase is schadenfreude ("happiness in the misfortune of others").

Along with his passion for experimenting and making drugs and poisons, Reiji loves to collect tea sets and kitchenware. His brothers sometimes use Reiji's interests to coerce him into cooking for them by saying that they'll use the kitchen themselves - his brothers have a penchant for destroying it. Ayato teases Reiji the most and usually blames his pranks on one of the other brothers. Kanato treats Reiji like a butler, and blackmails him with tantrums. Although he could be rough with outsiders, he is often kind (still strict) with most of his brothers.

## Powers and Abilities

Like all vampires, Reiji has inhuman stamina, a more resilient body, can move very quickly and has an enhanced sense of hearing and smell. Being a vampire, he also has inhuman regeneration abilities and healing saliva which over time close up the bite marks on humans after feeding. Vampires are also resistant against all human viruses.

### Teleportation

It's shown that Reiji along with this brothers are capable of teleporting between rooms in an instant.

### Flight

On the night of a full moon, vampires possess the ability to fly.

### Bat Transformation

Although it's never witnessed that Reiji can turn into a bat, it's seen that lower blood vampires can, so it's implied that Reiji also can as a higher ranking pure blood vampire.

### Swordsmanship

Reiji is able to spar with fencing swords. As he's shown to use a fencing sword and to be able to use a saber in duelling Karlheinz.

### Mind Control

On a full moon, Reiji possesses the ability of mind control when he makes Yui drink a tea she believes to be poisoned.

### Science

Reiji has an interest in chemistry and creating various drugs and potions. During a flashback, he's shown as a child to make a healing cream and learnt how to treat vampires. However this rendered him feared by the others in the castle due to not trusting his experiments. He's also made drugs which can numb nerves, stop motor function, aphrodisiacs and his end goal is to make a resurrection drug to bring his dead mother back to life.

### Language

Despite all of the Sakamaki brothers being required to learn Japanese when moving to Japan, Reiji is also fluent in German and the native language of the Demon World.

### Other

Since Reiji is a pureblood vampire, he can only die if his head is cut off or the heart is destroyed, however if his body is so severely damaged that it is unable to heal, it may result in a permanent coma or death.

## Etymology

* Reiji's surname **Sakamaki** means "reverse winding" (逆巻).
	+ It can also mean "inverted, reverse, opposite, wicked" (逆) (**saka**) and "volume, roll, reel, book" (巻) (**maki**) separately.

## Trivia

* The name Reiji means a few things depending on how it is written but due to it being written in katakana (レイジ) it may imply a more westernised reading, making it more of a play on the English word 'rage' referring to how Reiji is holding in a lot of anger.
* Some ways that Reiji can be written however can be ( 零児 ) which means 'zero child', which in this case could mean 'forgotten child' as he is neglected through his childhood. It can also be written as ( 零二 ) which means 'zero two', or in this case 'the second born who was forgotten'.
* Reiji can also be written as ( 怜児 ) which means 'wise child' reffering to how intelligent Reiji is.
* Reiji is shown to become highly emotional when drunk.
* He is the leader of the Scarlet Family.
* It's shown Reiji has a fear of ghosts (though doesn't openly admit to it).
* Reiji states he enjoys rollercoasters, finding them interesting and fun.
* In a short story, he admitted to not completely hating living with his brothers. In fact he enjoys it a little bit since like he said, if he truly hated it, he would have left the mansion long ago.
* Reiji once combined Vongole Bianco and Macaron to make a new dish to appease both Kou and Laito's interests.
* He's the tallest Sakamaki brother.
* He is good at chess.
* He is right-handed.
* His foot size is 27cm.
* He can play the piano.
* He can cook very well.
* Reiji glasses lens size is 0.5.
* He is fluent in German.
* In his song “Toaru Yogensha no, SCHICKSAL” he sings some German words.