Ryo - BASIC INFORMATION
Name: Akiyama Ryou 秋山リョウ
Age: 14 (Digimon Tamers) / 11/12 (WonderSwan games)
Voice actor: Kanemaru Jun'ichi
Steve Staley (dub)
Tobias Mueller (ger)
Digimon: Cyberdramon
D-Power: blue
/ The Digimon King who is number 1 when it comes to suave /
The legendary Tamer who won the championships in last year's Digimon Tournament. His whereabouts are unknown immediately after this tournament, but he shows up meeting Ruki and the others in the Digital World. With his partner Cyberdramon, he has been traveling the Digital World for 10 months. Due to his tanned skin, sparkling white teeth, and pleasant smile, Ruki sarcastically describes him to be releasing "the perfect sparkling aura," and his actions show beyond the shadow of a doubt to be filled with nothing but friendship and good intentions. His abilities are quite high, and he is able to use the Device card that only the truly strong Tamer is said to be able to master. After he returns to the Real World with Takato and the others, he goes back to his home in Kyushu temporarily, until the appearance of the D-Reaper in Tokyo prompts him to come running back (digimon series memorial book: digimon animation chronicle).
伝説のテイマーと呼ばれる程の凄腕。その爽やかな好青年のパートナーは対照的で獰猛なパートナー、サイバードラモンをDアークから出る光のムチで操る様は、さながら猛獣使いのよう。
Talented enough to be called the Legendary Tamer. This refreshing young man's partner is a constrastive and fierce one. Ryo controls Cyberdramon with a whip of light that appears from his D-Arc, similar to a wild animal tamer (TOEI).
Ryo Akiyama is Cyberdramon's tamer, and Kazu and Kenta's idol. Their biomerged form is Justimon. He once won a Digimon card game against Rika Nonaka. Sometime before the card game which Rika won, Ryo traveled to the digital world, and became Cyberdramon's tamer (Digimon Tamers Wiki).
RYO'S CHARACTER DESIGN:
Even before I had joined the Digimon Tamers team, there was a character that had already been destined to appear in the third season of Digimon. This was Ryo, the main character of the WonderSwan Digimon game.
As Ryo was a very popular character in Japan, the plan was to draw him into the TV series, as well. However, since Digimon Tamers has a very different world view and continuity from the previous Digimon series, it was difficult to figure out how to introduce him.
Ryo's refreshingly confident personality doesn't exactly contradict the character from the WonderSwan game, but I still feel that it made him uniquely part of the Digimon Tamers world (excerpt from Chiaki Konaka's character notes).
This is a character well-known among the child audience, so introduce him as a "very talented digimon tamer" after the mid-point of the series, as a repeated guest character.
Different from the game, Ryo's priority as a TV series character must be heightened, and he must be given his own Partner Digimon. The digimon's power, strength, and heroism should make Ryo all the more attractive (excerpt from Chiaki Konaka's early planning notes).
They [Digimon Tamers and WonderSwan Ryo] are the same person. Simply put, Ryo was flown beyond space-time as soon as he defeated Millenniumon in D-1 Tamers, and he lost his memory. And this is why he encountered Takato and the others (comment from Hiromi Seki, Digimon producer).
