Ryoma Hoshi

Ryoma Hoshi is a character from the Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony video game.

Ryoma is a student in Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles and a participant of the Killing School Semester. His title is Ultimate Tennis Pro. Despite his promising career, he killed a whole mafia organization and became a prisoner on death row before being shut in Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Ryoma is brought back to life. Ryoma is a member of the Heroes Coalitions as a trainee.

Appearance
Ryoma is the shortest character in Danganronpa V3. Contrary to his soft appearance, he has a very deep voice. He has cropped red hair, black eyes with no visible pupils, and rosy cheeks.

He wears a black hat with two points that has a picture of two blue tennis rackets on it, a black leather jacket, and a black and dark blue striped jumpsuit underneath, similar to that of a prisoner. He wears brown shoes and has a metal cuff attached to his left leg with a bit of a chain attached to it.

His legs are notably much more muscular than the rest of his body. He always has a candy in his mouth, which may give the impression of a cigarette.

Before gaining his Ultimate talent, he wore a standard school uniform, with a gray blazer over top a white dress shirt and red tie. He also wore black pants with a plaid pattern and black loafers. Interestingly, he still carries a candy cigarette in his mouth.

Personality
Ryoma is a hard-boiled dandy character. Though he looks like a child, it's been said that his life experience would put an adult to shame. He has a coolness that common high school students don't have, heightened by his very deep, mature voice. He is the calmest, composed, and an unperturbed person in the Killing Game. He isn't shaken by murders nor even if he is personally harmed. He often mentions how he refuses to do something "uncool" and doesn't want to show his softer side.

After killing a mafia organization with his own hands, Ryoma considers himself a killer, the kind of person other people should not get close to. While generally not appearing very aggressive, he is apparently willing to harm and even kill people if he believes they deserve it, and he occasionally gives others a very piercing look as a warning.

Ryoma has a tendency to push other people away. He feels others shouldn't get close to him, because along with being a murderer he is on a death row and thus likely to die soon, which would cause his close ones emotional burden. However, his younger self was a big animal lover with a positive and proactive nature, but he states that he is now just a shadow of his former self and his old self no longer exists. Nevertheless, he still has certain kindness in him and retains his great love for animals. He will not stand seeing an animal in trouble, considering such situation an emergency. He also empathizes with Kaede's wish to escape and become friends with everyone, considering it "not bad" of an option. Despite being depressed himself and warning Kaede to not be so idealistic, his kindness often shines through and he occasionally gives other people good and positive advice, showing that he still has faith in life and positive thoughts deep down. During Class Trials, he generally trusts others but doesn't hesitate to voice his doubts and use calm judgment. He is also willing to immediately apologize for incorrect doubts. Furthermore, Ryoma is still interested in tennis even though he strongly denies this at first.

Due to his past, Ryoma appears to be depressed and suicidal, assuming he has very little time left and is unable to have any close ones. He has little regard, if any at all, for his own life. He believes that being a death row inmate automatically makes his life worth less than anyone and he is very much willing to die for the sake of the other students. In Chapter 1, he offers to have one of the others kill him so that they may escape the school, allowing everyone to continue on with the Killing Game. Rantaro manages to convince him otherwise, but he is still in a lot of doubt. He decided to look for a reason to live but became even more suicidal after his motive video revealed that he apparently has nobody to care about him in the outside world, causing him to find no reason to live. However, the situation is a bit unclear, as he showed a more positive change in attitude while talking with Shuichi. While Kirumi claimed that Ryoma had accepted his fate and wanted her to kill him, this is never confirmed and he had tried to fight back against Kirumi in order to live. In the non-canon bonus mode of Danganronpa V3, Ultimate Talent Development Plan, he also grows a bit more positive during the three years, as in the end he thinks that his future didn't completely disappear a long time ago after all.

Ryoma has mentioned that he doesn't feel anything anymore concerning sexual matters, supposedly due to his depression. Such situations also make him uncomfortable, presumably because he suffered from harassment while he was in prison.

Abilities
Ryoma was a tennis player with a promising future, world famous since his middle school days and winning many international matches. He is able to use the Shukuchi Method, a type of rapid movement that takes advantage of the opponent's blind spot. He would always enter the tennis court using his right foot, which he felt gave him good luck.

The Mastermind's claim that Ryoma's talent as the Ultimate Tennis Pro is a fabrication made by Team Danganronpa. Due to that fact, it is unclear whether Ryoma is a tennis champion in the past.

Trivia

 * Ryoma has a very deep voice despite his small appearance. This contrasts Daisaku Bandai from Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, who has a high-pitched, feminine voice with a very bulky appearance.
 * Ryoma is the shortest character in Danganronpa V3, and the shortest human character in the entire Danganronpa series.
 * When investigating Ryoma's Research Lab in Chapter 2, Shuichi Saihara comments that it looks like it belongs to the Ultimate Prisoner instead of the Ultimate Tennis Pro.
 * Ryoma and Miu are the only Class Trial participants that never join Kaede or Shuichi's side in Debate Scrums.
 * Ryoma's English voice actor, Chris Tergliafera, also voices Gundham Tanaka in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
 * In a poll hosted by MyNavi, fans voted Ryoma the 15th most popular Danganronpa V3 student.
 * Japanese gaming magazine Dengeki from April 27th, 2017 to May 22nd, 2017 held two popularity polls, one that was voted electronically and the other via post cards. Ryoma was voted the 14th most popular student in the electronic poll, and 9th through post cards.