Mikado Ryuugamine

Mikado Ryuugamine (竜ヶ峰帝人 Ryuugamine Mikado) is a childhood friend of Kida Masaomi and the primary male protagonist of the series. He is later revealed to also be the creator of the Dollars.

In the anime he is voiced by Toyonaga Toshiyuki (Japanese) and Darrel Guilbeau for the English Dub.

Characteristics
Mikado is a polite, soft spoken boy, who at times can be quite childish and naive. This is likely a result of his small town upbringing; as he moves to Ikebukuro he is amazed and overwhelmed by the sheer size and energy of the city, and thus himself feels small and insignificant. He was bored of the average life he previously led, and moved to Tokyo in search of adventure.

Despite his personality, he is shown to have a pretty strong will, and he does have moments where he speaks his mind, which is one of the reasons Masaomi admires him.

As he often acts like a child, Masaomi feels he has to stay around Mikado and help him out, since he would not be able to manage on his own. While Mikado envied Masaomi for his exciting life (for most of the series he is unaware of Masaomi's affiliation with the Yellow Scarves), Masaomi ironically envies Mikado's innocence and his ability to lead a quiet, happy life.

As the series progresses, Mikado gradually becomes more and more assertive, and becomes able to accept the chaos that life throws at him without trying to run away.

Background
Mikado grew up in the small town of Saitama, and led an unexciting life that he grew bored with. People often commented that his name sounds like that of a manga character, and he wished that his life was more like a manga, with more unusual and exciting events. When he met his childhood friend, Kida Masaomi online, Masaomi would always tell him stories about the excitement of his life in the big city. Eventually, when Masaomi decided he would be going to Raira Academy in Ikebukuro and invited Mikado to go with him, Mikado happily accepted, hoping to find a more exciting life.

It is also known that he created the online group the Dollars as a middle schooler. He created the group with some of his friends as a joke, but shortly after they created the group, the group began to grow at an alarming rate, with people joining whom none of the creators had sent invitations to. This was the work of Orihara Izaya. The creators, unaware of this, were afraid of the group which was spiralling out of control, and all of the creators except Mikado left the group, leaving him as the only remaining creator and the sole leader.

Mikado then became class representive along with Sonohara Anri, that he loves so much. He also learned about Harima Mika, Sonohara's missing friend.

Mikado regularly joined a chatroom with the handle "Tanaka Taro," where he chatted with "Kanra" and "Setton," who in real life were Orihara Izaya and Celty Sturluson, respectively. It was mostly from Kanra that he learned about the gangs and incidents in Ikebukuro, including about rumours of human experiments carried out by Yagiri pharmacy.

After meeting Harima Mika personally and seeing the scars on her neck, he confirmed Sonohara's previous suspicion that Harima Mika's disappearance had something to do with the human experimentation rumours. After he was attacked by people who worked for Yagiri pharmacy, he revealed that he was the leader of the Dollars, calling a Dollars meeting and using their numbers to confront Yagiri Namie, the director of the pharmacy.

When the Yellow Scarves started hitting members of the Dollars on suspicion that they were in league with the Slasher, instead of fighting back Mikado decided to try and disband the Dollars in order to keep people from getting hurt. However, the Dollars, particularly Kadota Kyohei's group, showed him that the Dollars were more than just the online group he started as a joke a long time ago, adding that as they were already invisible, they could not "disappear" even if their leader asked them to. He eventually decided that it was okay for the Dollars to exist, and brought the group back.

Anime
Anime specific spoilers about this character per episode.

Episode 01:he is scared but happy of his new life,

Episode 02:

Episode 10: Although not directly, Mikado revealed to Izaya and Celty that he's the leader and creator of Dollars.

Episode 11: Through a flashback story, Mikado is revealed to be the Dollars' founder and leader.

Manga
Manga specific spoilers about this character per volume/chapter.

Volume 01:

Light Novel
Light Novel specific spoilers about this character per volume/chapter.

Volume 01:

Volume 04: Mikado is watching the news just in time to see Celty being chased by Kinnosuke Kuzuhara on screen. He is slightly worried but knows that Celty should be able to handle it. He logs on to the chatroom and Kanra posts a link to a website. When Mikado clicks on it, he sees a wanted poster for Celty with a 10 million yen reward for her capture, the ones who put up the reward being Yadogiri Shinning Corporation. Mikado briefly wonders if he should mobilize the Dollars to help but dedcues that they probably wouldn't be able to do much in this situation and may actually even draw more attention to Celty than the wanted ad already did.

The next day, after the opening ceremony for the new year, Mikado and Anri are approached by a new student named Aoba Kuronuma. The two of them are quickly overwhelmed by Aoba's hyperactive personality and they are persuaded (forced) into giving Aoba a tour of Ikebukuro since he was new to the area. Mikado and Anri then meet up with Erika and Walker for advice on showing someone around since neither Mikado or Anri are very talkative. Erika and Walker agree and even offer to accompany them while they show Aoba around.

The next day, shortly after the trio gets together, Mikado is suddenly thretened by a small group of former yellow scarves members out for revenge. Before things get too serious, however, Kyohei and the gang ride in and pull Mikado, Anri, and Aoba into the van. Mikado notices the Orihara twins also in the van but has not time to question it as Togusa begins speeding away on the road. Mikado looks out the window and sees several members of a biker gang called Toromaru riding after them. Kyohei apologizes for dragging them into this. Several hours into the chase, Celty pulls in along side the van along with even more Toromaru members, explaining that they were after the ten million yen reward. After recieving some unexpected assisstance from Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, the group continue to get chased by Toromaru until they come to an overpass. Celty tells the others to run away while she holds the gang at bay. Kyohei and Togusa drop everyone off several blocks away before the two of them drive back to help celty. Mikado and the others run back despite being told to get the police but find Igor and Ruri Hijiribe beating up the Toromaru members while Celty, Kyohei, and Togusa watch in awe. A few days later, after things have finally quieted down, Mikado and several others take part in the hotpot party being held at Celty and Shinra's apartment.

Volume 05: In the chatroom, Mikado is pulled into private chat with Kida. Mikado asks kida what the problem was. Kida tells Mikado not to go out during golden week as well as to make sure no one finds out his connection to the dollars or that he's even a member at all. Kida goes on to say that Dollars is in danger but isn't sure what the reason is. Mikado is confused but agrees to lay low, trusting Kida's judgement (in reality, this was Izaya trying to manipulate Mikado by posing as Masaomi).

The next day, after a student councel meeting, Mikado and Anri are approached by Aoba who wanted to go on another tour of Ikebukuro since their last one was interrupted by Toromaru. Mikado, remembering kida's warning, tries to turn aoba down so that he could look up info on what was endangering the dollars. Mikado states that he can't go with Aoba, saying he had some urgent business. Upon hearing this, Aoba began to (not so) subtely flirt with Anri about accompanying him. Anri is oblivious to Aoba's advances but Mikado panics and says that he will show him around but can't go at night, saying it gets too crowded during golden week. Aoba and Anri agree to meet the next day.

Later, at his apartment Mikado starts asking on the chatroom about anything that might have happened to the dollars. Kururi and Mairu point him to another website which contains a news report. Mikado learns that several members of Toromaru were attacked in Saitama and beaten severely to the point where many of the were sent to the hospital. Along with several burned and destroyed motorbikes, Mikado notices the word DOLLARS spraypainted over Toromaru's logo on a wall in the background of a picture.

Mikado as the founder, feels responsible for the incident and wonders what he should do. Mikado then gets a call from Izaya. Having no one else to turn to at the moment, Mikado talks to Izaya for advice on the matter. Izaya mentions the captain of Toromaru, Rokujo Chikage, is in town looking for revenge and suggests that Mikado simply quits the dollars but Mikado denies that option almost imediately. Izaya takes this as a sign that Mikado is more attached to dollars than he initially expected and deduces that Mikado is worried that the Dollars are getting out of control. Izaya also states that even though Mikado wants to solve the issue, he is actually excited about the whole situation. Mikado doesn't entirely deny this and Izaya ends the conversation by offering his help should Mikado need it, hinting at ulterior motives in the process.

Mikado tries to think of a plan to resolve the incident but keeps drawing a blank. The feeling of exitement begins to swell up in Mikado at the recent turn of events but he pushes it out of his mind. Someone then knocks on Mikado's door and it is soon revealed to be Aoba. Before Mikado can ask what is happening, he notices several thuggish looking individuals wearing blue standing behind Aoba. Wearing the same cheerful yet eerie smile, Aoba tells Mikado to come with him.

Mikado, Aoba, and the rest of the delinquents arrived at an abandoned factory warehouse. Aoba asks Mikado if he was looking into the incident in Saitama. Mikado confirms that he was but is shocked when Aoba casually admits that "We did it." the thugs who accompanyed them began to chuckle when Aoba gave his confession. Aoba states that it was revenge for chasing everyone halfway across the city several months ago. He also goes on to say that although they attacked Toromaru in the name of the Dollars, Aoba and his group also go by the name Blue Squares. As Mikado abosrbed this information, his cell phone, along with everyone elses, began to ring with a messsage that Rokujo Chikage was attacking Kyohei and his gang.

Ignoring the message, Aoba offers the role of leadership over to Mikado. Mikado is perplexed at the offer and suspects an ulterior motive. Aoba explains that he wouldn't be the leader of the Dollars but specifically of the Blue Squares who would act as a special unit that only answered to him. Mikado tries to turn him down, saying he wouldn't get involved in something like that. Aoba then asks why Mikado is smiling if he didn't want what was offered.



Volume 06: It is revealed that possibly Mikado has yet to show his true self, or a darker side of his.

Trivia

 * His mother's name is Hiromi (ひろみ) while his father's name probably read as Ryūgamine Ryūya (竜ヶ峰竜也) as read in usual way since there's no official romanization for his parents' name.


 * His given name's kanji usually read as Teijin instead of simply Mikado.


 * His hometown is in Saitama.


 * He was ranked 1st in Raira Academy's entrance test. Tying with Anri, and thus Anri has developed a small admiration for Mikado. Though it is not noticed much.


 * He's born with 2982 gram weight.
 * His favorite subject is IT when his least favorite subject is P.E. as he states that he's weak at sports.
 * His favorite quote is "Supreme rule of life is to adapt without compromising," the words of a German Philosopher, Georg Simmel.
 * He has the same name of the european version of pocky.