Rei Ryugazaki

Rei Ryugazaki (竜ヶ崎 怜 Ryuugazaki Rei) is the main character in the anime series Free!, beginning with Free!, and the light novel High☆Speed！ written by Kouji Ohji. He is a butterfly swimmer and a third-year high school student at Iwatobi High School. Rei is a former member of the Track Club before being recruited by Nagisa Hazuki for the Iwatobi High School Swim Club. After Haruka Nanase and Makoto Tachibana graduate, he becomes the new captain of the Swim Club.

Appearance
Rei is a muscular young man with purple eyes and short, dark blue hair. He wears crimson-framed corrective lenses because he is near-sighted. His fall and winter high school uniform consists of light brown trousers, a white shirt with red necktie, a dark gray unbuttoned blazer, and black-and-white sneakers. During the spring and summer, his summer uniform consists of gray trousers, a white shirt with a dark gray collar, red dotted necktie and black-and-white sneakers. His uniform as a 3rd-year would change only in the color of his necktie being green. While pole vaulting, he wears a pair of orange lens sports glasses, white sleeveless sports top with yellow and black stripes, shorts, black short-legged tights, and blue spike sneakers. While swimming, he wears black, long-legged swimskins with a blue pattern. The most developed muscles of his form are his tricep and abdominal muscles (upper arms and abdomen).

Personality
He is an intelligent and logical individual with a penchant for beautiful things, the thought of exuding anything but beauty through his actions causing him to dramatically lose his cool. He is also quite comical when he lets his self-doubt get the better of him. He is, however, a hardworking and determined individual, as seen in his relentless drive when learning to swim despite several failed attempts.

Rei has a theoretical approach when it comes to sports, as he usually calculates distance, angle, and other factors in his mind before actually making an attempt. Because of his rigid nature, he has a tendency to overlook the fun and enjoyment that comes with the activity. As Haruka told Rei, he needed to be "free" in order to swim properly, because he is constantly calculating and underestimating the water. He has a unique laugh that is easily identifiable.

History
Rei meets Asahi Shiina when they are both in elementary school, but do not meet again until Rei is competing as a high school senior and Asahi is in college attending the high school tournament as a spectator. They accidentally pass one another and suddenly remember their early encounter.

Skill
"#8861F8"

- Is that supposed to be butterfly? Pathetic!

Current stats (season one) :

Expected stats:

Creation and Conception
Hiroko Utsumi said in an interview that Rei initially felt cool like Haruka, but as soon as he opened his mouth and started to frolic, that similarity ended immediately. She added that he was the type of person girls would complain, "he looks so cool, but it's such a shame he had to open his mouth...". He's said to be a quibbler in the theory side of things, but have a problem in the heart of things. His face immediately expresses whatever he feels, so he's easy to read. He loves beautiful things, so his appreciation of beauty is very high. His sense of beauty overdoes it to the point where he always tucks his shirt in. Utsumi said to look closely and you will see he does everything properly, even ensuring the straps on his backpack are perfectly tight around his uniform.

Trivia

 * His motif animal is a butterfly.
 * Rei's animal is unique compared to the other characters' as his is the only non-aquatic animal. This is commonly interpreted to be due to the fact he was not originally a swimmer but, like a butterly, changes his "path" during his development.
 * Like all members of the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club, Rei has a feminine name.
 * During a school sleepover in fifth grade, Rei accidentally left his underwear in the locker room.
 * Rei wears red eyeglasses, a color commonly chosen by girls in elementary school, although he says he just likes the color.
 * Rei is the only member of the Iwatobi Swimming Club that has his body hair shaved (by Nagisa).
 * Rin described Rei's stroke pathetic.
 * Rei owns a black and white mobile phone.
 * Rei likes eating sushi.
 * Rei likes reading, running, calculating and pole-vaulting.
 * Rei's best subjects are Math and Chemistry, while he's bad at Art and Music.
 * According to Rin, Rei has horrible English pronunciation.
 * According to Rei, the Ryugazaki family has been pairing melon bread with barley tea since his grandfather's time.
 * He suffers from motion sickness.
 * At a staff talk event for Free!–the Final Stroke–, one of the character designers discussed the main characters' body types in terms of musculature. Rei was listed as being "type 3:" definitely above average muscles, with more noticeable definition. It was also specified that despite similar builds, Rei's muscles were "hard" compared to Rin who has "soft" muscles.

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