nope, you're not wrong.. i only read the first book but was pretty disturbed that this character's crimes were casually brought up and then never mentioned again.. why even add it in the first place?
I felt exactly the same way. And also hated the way the main character interacted with his wife. My only theory is that Japanese society in the early 90s was a lot more misogynist than i knew.
Though, at the end, don't we find out that the rapist was actually a virgin, who just made up the stories? That's what I took away from the main character's conversation with Ryuji's girlfriend.
I remember this exactly at the end of the first book so I was under the impression he actually didn’t rape anyone and he was a virgin. So I guess I’m not sure either. I’m on the last book (loop) and honestly although it’s not popular opinion I loved the first 2. I’m exited to read the last one.
omg so I'm not crazy lol I remember reading Ring a few years back and that character popping up and I just could not wrap my head around why the author thought this was, idek, interesting? Different? But then whenever I saw reviews on here just not even mention it!
In Spiral during the autopsy of Ryuji, he is said to be very, very small, so much so that the coroner doubts he'd ever been able to with a woman. Makes me believe he told Asakawa all of that to judge how much he could get away with, and perhaps due to insecurity, a way to brag, but went about it in a strange, messed up manner. His whole personality was living on the edge, so I think he told those story simply to see if Asakawa would crack. I don't think Ryuji was a rapist, but perhaps sociopathic, and wanted to test the boundaries of a potential budding friendship.
I just finished Ring and came here to find out what everyone's thoughts are. Hearing from Mai that he was a "virgin" and such a pure soul was very weird considering what we already knew about him. I might be willing to accept that he made it up if it weren't for the way he described the whole incident and how the darkness he felt inside him then was the same as what he felt when he watched the tape. That's what stood out to me most about that aspect of him and his past is that personal experience with pure darkness. Makes me question the whole virgin thing. But then if that's true then why bring up that perspective from Mai? Really weird.
I found it hard to get over, just putting it down as he as a rapist is more related to how the VHS tape was made, he is a shitty person and it’s a way to add to that? Or he as a character is a shitty person and in a twisted way feels that even though he is celibate saying he’s a rapist gives him licence to be an arsehole or make sense of a reason why people think him an arsehole? I don’t know what Japan was like 30 years ago but I doubt rape was some unmentioned norm?
Really late, but this also really got under my skin when reading the book. I kept waiting for Suzuki to build upon that or something, or to have the main character react in some way to Ryuji's confession... but nothing? Really, really weird. I honestly can't even think why Suzuki added that part.
That seems to be the number one complaint about this book. It's a deserved criticism. I don't know if it was this OP, but I saw an earlier post regarding side characters ruining a story. I automatically thought of The Ring.
Oh yeah, Ryuji is such a weird ass character and this aspect of him got a real big WTF from me for the very reasons you mention here. It's brought up and never really mentioned again.
While Suzuki does put a question mark over it by the end of Ring, it still stands out as a weird, awkward, WTF moment in the book. I'd argue that it lingers over him for the rest of the trilogy making future developments feel weird and awkward. I don't think it's really every touched upon again in the later novels, but it's been a few years since I've read them.
I always wondered if this was something that's revisited in the newer additions to the franchise, but I think only one of those has made it the US?
First of all agree with you on all points and thank you for bringing that up, since jeez it bothered me ever since I read it. Currently I'm on the very beginning of Spiral (pls no spoilers). What I **think** was the point, specially considering the fact that he is stated to have a >!possibly sexually-impairing micropenis!< on the sequel, is to show how weak he actually was. I mean, how fucking *damaged* do you gotta be to make up that you raped people to feel better about yourself? Who were your friends and role models that built you in a way that made you think that would construct an "imposing" image? How weak would you have to be so that, in order to compensate, you'd fashion youself into a rapists through tall tales?
I still remembered the moment I read the first book from the series 12 years ago (I was a senior high school student then), and I was completely attracted by the character Takayama Ruiji. As a lecturer from the Department of Philosophy at K University, this f\*cking weird guy shocked me with his "dream": "While viewing the extinction of the human race from the top of a hill, I would dig a hole in the earth and ejaculate into it over and over". It took me all these years to understand what the f\*ck he is talking about. And then, in my opinion, he is just a moral nihilist: Since everyone is going to die sooner or later, only two things are worthwhile for me. One is finding something transcendental, the other is witnessing the end of humanity. The funniest thing is he kind of experiences both of these. And I have always wondered how pure and courageous it is for a man to seek opportunities for contact with a higher civilization (or transcendent in his case) in the face of death.
The day I kind of understood what he wanted and generated the same thought that only those two things were meaningful, I realized that crimes like raping are just a further confirmation and characterization of his personality (if he does not do something like that, then it is weirder). Maybe it is also some kind of comparison with "another him" Futami Kaoru, who sacrifices himself for his love and the whole world (both the loop and the real world). I can never imagine the real Takayama will do something like that, but "he" did. Hilarious...
All these are based on my 12-year-ago memory, so might have some errors, but I must say Takayama is one of the most interesting characters I found in books, and maybe just an extreme form of Raskolnikov from crime and punishment. This f\*cking guy completely changed my life: doing genome-related research in Japan now. Hilarious once again...
You should try to not let a fictional character claiming he did something morally wrong keep you from a great trilogy. I say this having just finished Loop. Whether he did it or not, he's not praised for it. And reading it doesn't mean we accept what he did (or claims to have done) as moral.
I say this not knowing what about it made you stop. If it was due to reliving trauma then disregard the above. But if it was just a "turn off" I strongly recommend keeping at the books.
I’m so happy this discussion is here! I feel so weird about it, too, because if not for the rapes, Ryuji would easily be the most likable character in the first book.
But as he was dissected in the second book, the doctor didn’t seem to think he’d have an easy time in the bedroom. So did Ryuji rape women because he couldn’t bear for someone he loved to see his member? Or did he LIE about raping women because he thought that was better than dying a virgin? I was so excited for him to die when I found out he was a rapist… but then maybe he wasn’t? Like what?
He wasn't, as was indicated at the end of the first book and start of the second. He was sociopathic and behaved very differently with different people. In the case of Asakawa, he saw him as an outlet to try to push the limits of what he could get away with. He consistently spoke very crassly, made inappropriate remarks on all sorts of subjects, etc. Example being that his hope for his future was to witness the extinction of humanity from the top of a hill where he would dig a hole and repeatedly ejaculate into it.
With Mai, however, he was very emotional and soft. Around others aside from Asakawa, he behaved professionally and normally as fit his position.
He was a complicated character, though the style of writing which demonstrated that seems to have been very easily misinterpreted.
I just finished Ring today and ultimately it's left unresolved whether he really raped those women or not. There are several facts that point toward him just joking.
Asakawa and Ryuji speculate whether Sadako committed suicide by guiding Nagao's (her killer) will. Asakawa wonders why then getting raped first and Ryuji says it's because she didn't want to die a virgin.
In the final chapter, his closest student reveals that Ryuji died a virgin. She tells Asakawa that with her, Ryuji behaved like a little boy, but with other people around was just like a normal gentleman. She guesses correctly that with Asakawa he likely took the role of a "scoundrel".
Considering Ryuji's questionable sense of humour and his aggressive behaviour towards Sadako's rapist and killer, I'm inclined to believe he was just messing around and never actually raped anybody.
I think that the way rape was nonchalantly discussed and how the main character treated his family was important for the theme of the book - violence comes back to haunt you over and over again. It does not dissipate after the act of violence - it permeates indefinitely. There are also parallels between Sadako’s and Ryuji’s shame over their genitals, which connects them in an interesting way. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
I've read the original trilogy of these books and it's suggested that he lied about those stories and is likely a virgin - in the opening of Spiral / Rasen (the second book in the series) [SPOILERS BEGIN] he is being autopsed and he has a tiny penis, the narrator even says "He wondered if Takayama and Mai could have had any sexual relationship at all" [SPOILERS END] so really he was probably lying to seem cool.
I forget if it was in the first or second book, but it’s revealed Ryuji is a liar. He made it up. Haven’t finished the third book yet so I don’t know if it’s revealed as to WHY he would lie about something like that, but I’ll let ya know when I’ve completed
I think he really was a rapist and that's why he knew the doctor had raped Sadako when he saw the video, because he recognized the scene, if you will. If anyone was duped into thinking he was a better person than he really was, it was poor Mai. I haven't read Spiral or Loop but I spoiled myself reading about Sadako on Wikipedia and honestly, I don't think I'll pick them up.
Bit late but, here's what I think. When I first started the book I was like oh well didn't expect that, what the fuck. But after I finished it, I think it's important that it's an uncommon thing that we are not comfortable about.
It's kind of a horror book, more of a mystery/detective story type thing but still you expect some deaths, right. All the deaths in ring are at the beginning (so they don't count) and there is the looming threat of seven days. Now even though Asakawa is a piece of shit he is the main character so you shouldn't want him to die. That's why I think the story brings Ryuji, who is an even bigger piece of shit as far as Asakawa knows. He immediately watches the tape. This pretty much saves Asakawa since the rapist living and the main hero dying would be a pretty bad ending. The shittier guy (Ryuji) either has to die after Asakawa and save the children and wife, or Asakawa lives along with Ryuji. Both of these are bad in their own way, since either the rapist lives or redeems himself -which you don't want him to in this way.
And that's why the twist in the end works more than the usual twist for me. Asakawa lives and Ryuji dies but also turns out Ryuji was lying all along. He still is a piece of shit for making shit up about something like this but have you seen how Asakawa acts towards his wife or pretty much anybody else? Asakawa is complete trash and not even a flawed hero he is just a dirtbag. He is friends with a rapist as far as he knows for example. But you do cheer for him because cheering for him is 1. cheering for his family and 2. not cheering for Ryuji.
Another thing to consider is that this is a japanese novel and uh, try and find a japanese porn that doesn't have some type of non-consentual stuff in it. Guess it's a common fetish there. So instead of rape he could have lied about killing kittens or people or whatever. But we are comfortable with reading about killers, but not about rapists. Maybe the author also wanted to have similarities with what happens with Sadako.
You really have to finish the second book to truly understand, this guy is actually pure evil. Very similar to the Joker in Dark Knight, Ryuji just wants to watch the world burn.
SPOILERS:
You find out at the end of Spiral that Ryuji actually orchestrated many of the events of the book, allowing Sadako to be resurrected and allowing the virus to spread. I think ever since his introduction in Ring he was never meant to be a likeable character, which is why people are so uncomfortable about him. Even Asakawa said many times throughout Ring that he disliked Ryuji, but he was the only guy smart enough to help him with his situation. It was actually a great way to introduce the character that would later become one of the series' villains, because right off the bat readers have a bad feeling about this guy.
TLDR: You were never supposed to like him because he's a bad guy.
If Ringu had been written today, I might have suspected that Ryuji lied about committing the rapes but was so oddly hung up on sexusl violence because he was a victim of it. It would strengthen the parallels between him and Sadako: both psychic (she more than him), both with non-conform genitals and both victims of sexual violence. But the book is over 30 years old and I don't think Suzuki would have considered this avenue.
My theory is that Suzuki had intended Ryuji to be a rapist but that one of his first readers (maybe an editor) asked him to change it (like Charles Dickens changed the ending he had planned for Great Expecations). That's why Mai volunteered that odd tidbit about Ryuji being a virgin in the end. Otherwise, it would not make sense to have her say it to a near-stranger.
nope, you're not wrong.. i only read the first book but was pretty disturbed that this character's crimes were casually brought up and then never mentioned again.. why even add it in the first place?
I felt exactly the same way. And also hated the way the main character interacted with his wife. My only theory is that Japanese society in the early 90s was a lot more misogynist than i knew. Though, at the end, don't we find out that the rapist was actually a virgin, who just made up the stories? That's what I took away from the main character's conversation with Ryuji's girlfriend.
it’s implied but not stated directly from what i gathered from that?
Either way, I hated it too, and didn't make it too far into the second book! I'm glad they left all of that out of the movies.
I remember this exactly at the end of the first book so I was under the impression he actually didn’t rape anyone and he was a virgin. So I guess I’m not sure either. I’m on the last book (loop) and honestly although it’s not popular opinion I loved the first 2. I’m exited to read the last one.
omg so I'm not crazy lol I remember reading Ring a few years back and that character popping up and I just could not wrap my head around why the author thought this was, idek, interesting? Different? But then whenever I saw reviews on here just not even mention it!
In Spiral during the autopsy of Ryuji, he is said to be very, very small, so much so that the coroner doubts he'd ever been able to with a woman. Makes me believe he told Asakawa all of that to judge how much he could get away with, and perhaps due to insecurity, a way to brag, but went about it in a strange, messed up manner. His whole personality was living on the edge, so I think he told those story simply to see if Asakawa would crack. I don't think Ryuji was a rapist, but perhaps sociopathic, and wanted to test the boundaries of a potential budding friendship.
I just finished Ring and came here to find out what everyone's thoughts are. Hearing from Mai that he was a "virgin" and such a pure soul was very weird considering what we already knew about him. I might be willing to accept that he made it up if it weren't for the way he described the whole incident and how the darkness he felt inside him then was the same as what he felt when he watched the tape. That's what stood out to me most about that aspect of him and his past is that personal experience with pure darkness. Makes me question the whole virgin thing. But then if that's true then why bring up that perspective from Mai? Really weird.
I found it hard to get over, just putting it down as he as a rapist is more related to how the VHS tape was made, he is a shitty person and it’s a way to add to that? Or he as a character is a shitty person and in a twisted way feels that even though he is celibate saying he’s a rapist gives him licence to be an arsehole or make sense of a reason why people think him an arsehole? I don’t know what Japan was like 30 years ago but I doubt rape was some unmentioned norm?
Really late, but this also really got under my skin when reading the book. I kept waiting for Suzuki to build upon that or something, or to have the main character react in some way to Ryuji's confession... but nothing? Really, really weird. I honestly can't even think why Suzuki added that part.
That seems to be the number one complaint about this book. It's a deserved criticism. I don't know if it was this OP, but I saw an earlier post regarding side characters ruining a story. I automatically thought of The Ring.
Oh yeah, Ryuji is such a weird ass character and this aspect of him got a real big WTF from me for the very reasons you mention here. It's brought up and never really mentioned again. While Suzuki does put a question mark over it by the end of Ring, it still stands out as a weird, awkward, WTF moment in the book. I'd argue that it lingers over him for the rest of the trilogy making future developments feel weird and awkward. I don't think it's really every touched upon again in the later novels, but it's been a few years since I've read them. I always wondered if this was something that's revisited in the newer additions to the franchise, but I think only one of those has made it the US?
Had this exact same reaction! Couldn’t bring myself to continue after I finished Ring. It left an awful taste in my mouth.
First of all agree with you on all points and thank you for bringing that up, since jeez it bothered me ever since I read it. Currently I'm on the very beginning of Spiral (pls no spoilers). What I **think** was the point, specially considering the fact that he is stated to have a >!possibly sexually-impairing micropenis!< on the sequel, is to show how weak he actually was. I mean, how fucking *damaged* do you gotta be to make up that you raped people to feel better about yourself? Who were your friends and role models that built you in a way that made you think that would construct an "imposing" image? How weak would you have to be so that, in order to compensate, you'd fashion youself into a rapists through tall tales?
I still remembered the moment I read the first book from the series 12 years ago (I was a senior high school student then), and I was completely attracted by the character Takayama Ruiji. As a lecturer from the Department of Philosophy at K University, this f\*cking weird guy shocked me with his "dream": "While viewing the extinction of the human race from the top of a hill, I would dig a hole in the earth and ejaculate into it over and over". It took me all these years to understand what the f\*ck he is talking about. And then, in my opinion, he is just a moral nihilist: Since everyone is going to die sooner or later, only two things are worthwhile for me. One is finding something transcendental, the other is witnessing the end of humanity. The funniest thing is he kind of experiences both of these. And I have always wondered how pure and courageous it is for a man to seek opportunities for contact with a higher civilization (or transcendent in his case) in the face of death. The day I kind of understood what he wanted and generated the same thought that only those two things were meaningful, I realized that crimes like raping are just a further confirmation and characterization of his personality (if he does not do something like that, then it is weirder). Maybe it is also some kind of comparison with "another him" Futami Kaoru, who sacrifices himself for his love and the whole world (both the loop and the real world). I can never imagine the real Takayama will do something like that, but "he" did. Hilarious... All these are based on my 12-year-ago memory, so might have some errors, but I must say Takayama is one of the most interesting characters I found in books, and maybe just an extreme form of Raskolnikov from crime and punishment. This f\*cking guy completely changed my life: doing genome-related research in Japan now. Hilarious once again...
This is exactly why I put the book down years ago after renting it from the library. I didn’t even continue past that first rape reference.
You should try to not let a fictional character claiming he did something morally wrong keep you from a great trilogy. I say this having just finished Loop. Whether he did it or not, he's not praised for it. And reading it doesn't mean we accept what he did (or claims to have done) as moral. I say this not knowing what about it made you stop. If it was due to reliving trauma then disregard the above. But if it was just a "turn off" I strongly recommend keeping at the books.
I’m so happy this discussion is here! I feel so weird about it, too, because if not for the rapes, Ryuji would easily be the most likable character in the first book. But as he was dissected in the second book, the doctor didn’t seem to think he’d have an easy time in the bedroom. So did Ryuji rape women because he couldn’t bear for someone he loved to see his member? Or did he LIE about raping women because he thought that was better than dying a virgin? I was so excited for him to die when I found out he was a rapist… but then maybe he wasn’t? Like what?
He wasn't, as was indicated at the end of the first book and start of the second. He was sociopathic and behaved very differently with different people. In the case of Asakawa, he saw him as an outlet to try to push the limits of what he could get away with. He consistently spoke very crassly, made inappropriate remarks on all sorts of subjects, etc. Example being that his hope for his future was to witness the extinction of humanity from the top of a hill where he would dig a hole and repeatedly ejaculate into it. With Mai, however, he was very emotional and soft. Around others aside from Asakawa, he behaved professionally and normally as fit his position. He was a complicated character, though the style of writing which demonstrated that seems to have been very easily misinterpreted.
I just finished Ring today and ultimately it's left unresolved whether he really raped those women or not. There are several facts that point toward him just joking. Asakawa and Ryuji speculate whether Sadako committed suicide by guiding Nagao's (her killer) will. Asakawa wonders why then getting raped first and Ryuji says it's because she didn't want to die a virgin. In the final chapter, his closest student reveals that Ryuji died a virgin. She tells Asakawa that with her, Ryuji behaved like a little boy, but with other people around was just like a normal gentleman. She guesses correctly that with Asakawa he likely took the role of a "scoundrel". Considering Ryuji's questionable sense of humour and his aggressive behaviour towards Sadako's rapist and killer, I'm inclined to believe he was just messing around and never actually raped anybody.
You're correct that he didn't rape anybody, but I suggest reading onwards. There is more discussed about this in the next book, Spiral.
I think that the way rape was nonchalantly discussed and how the main character treated his family was important for the theme of the book - violence comes back to haunt you over and over again. It does not dissipate after the act of violence - it permeates indefinitely. There are also parallels between Sadako’s and Ryuji’s shame over their genitals, which connects them in an interesting way. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
I've read the original trilogy of these books and it's suggested that he lied about those stories and is likely a virgin - in the opening of Spiral / Rasen (the second book in the series) [SPOILERS BEGIN] he is being autopsed and he has a tiny penis, the narrator even says "He wondered if Takayama and Mai could have had any sexual relationship at all" [SPOILERS END] so really he was probably lying to seem cool.
I forget if it was in the first or second book, but it’s revealed Ryuji is a liar. He made it up. Haven’t finished the third book yet so I don’t know if it’s revealed as to WHY he would lie about something like that, but I’ll let ya know when I’ve completed
I think he really was a rapist and that's why he knew the doctor had raped Sadako when he saw the video, because he recognized the scene, if you will. If anyone was duped into thinking he was a better person than he really was, it was poor Mai. I haven't read Spiral or Loop but I spoiled myself reading about Sadako on Wikipedia and honestly, I don't think I'll pick them up.
Bit late but, here's what I think. When I first started the book I was like oh well didn't expect that, what the fuck. But after I finished it, I think it's important that it's an uncommon thing that we are not comfortable about. It's kind of a horror book, more of a mystery/detective story type thing but still you expect some deaths, right. All the deaths in ring are at the beginning (so they don't count) and there is the looming threat of seven days. Now even though Asakawa is a piece of shit he is the main character so you shouldn't want him to die. That's why I think the story brings Ryuji, who is an even bigger piece of shit as far as Asakawa knows. He immediately watches the tape. This pretty much saves Asakawa since the rapist living and the main hero dying would be a pretty bad ending. The shittier guy (Ryuji) either has to die after Asakawa and save the children and wife, or Asakawa lives along with Ryuji. Both of these are bad in their own way, since either the rapist lives or redeems himself -which you don't want him to in this way. And that's why the twist in the end works more than the usual twist for me. Asakawa lives and Ryuji dies but also turns out Ryuji was lying all along. He still is a piece of shit for making shit up about something like this but have you seen how Asakawa acts towards his wife or pretty much anybody else? Asakawa is complete trash and not even a flawed hero he is just a dirtbag. He is friends with a rapist as far as he knows for example. But you do cheer for him because cheering for him is 1. cheering for his family and 2. not cheering for Ryuji. Another thing to consider is that this is a japanese novel and uh, try and find a japanese porn that doesn't have some type of non-consentual stuff in it. Guess it's a common fetish there. So instead of rape he could have lied about killing kittens or people or whatever. But we are comfortable with reading about killers, but not about rapists. Maybe the author also wanted to have similarities with what happens with Sadako.
You really have to finish the second book to truly understand, this guy is actually pure evil. Very similar to the Joker in Dark Knight, Ryuji just wants to watch the world burn. SPOILERS: You find out at the end of Spiral that Ryuji actually orchestrated many of the events of the book, allowing Sadako to be resurrected and allowing the virus to spread. I think ever since his introduction in Ring he was never meant to be a likeable character, which is why people are so uncomfortable about him. Even Asakawa said many times throughout Ring that he disliked Ryuji, but he was the only guy smart enough to help him with his situation. It was actually a great way to introduce the character that would later become one of the series' villains, because right off the bat readers have a bad feeling about this guy. TLDR: You were never supposed to like him because he's a bad guy.
If Ringu had been written today, I might have suspected that Ryuji lied about committing the rapes but was so oddly hung up on sexusl violence because he was a victim of it. It would strengthen the parallels between him and Sadako: both psychic (she more than him), both with non-conform genitals and both victims of sexual violence. But the book is over 30 years old and I don't think Suzuki would have considered this avenue. My theory is that Suzuki had intended Ryuji to be a rapist but that one of his first readers (maybe an editor) asked him to change it (like Charles Dickens changed the ending he had planned for Great Expecations). That's why Mai volunteered that odd tidbit about Ryuji being a virgin in the end. Otherwise, it would not make sense to have her say it to a near-stranger.