Ryuji takes the diary with the intention of publishing it to spread the curse even further. Ryuji Takayama is a major character in the series, first appearing in Ring. In Ring, Ryūji Takayama is a strange man with a dark sense of humor, who as such claims to be an occasional rapist and seems to fear nothing. As soon as Asakawa explains the story, Ryuji believes him, and wants nothing other than to see the cursed videotape. Asakawa shows it to him, and although Ryuji remains nonchalant, he agrees there is a powerful aura around the tape. He asks Asakawa to make him a copy to study at home, which Asakawa does. By the end, he and Asakawa believe they have solved the mystery surrounding the series' central character, Sadako Yamamura; the following day, however, Sadako's malignant spirit emerges from the tape and kills him. In Spiral a former medical school classmate, Ando, performs the autopsy on Ryuji. He discovers a bit of newspaper sticking out of Ryuji's stomach sutures, with two sets of numbers on it: "178" and "136". Later on, it is traced to a code, utilizing a sequence of Ryuji's DNA. The message contained was "mutation". Ando later discovers that Ryuji decided to join forces with Sadako, and is blackmailed by Sadako into bringing Ryuji back to life. Sadako and Ryuji then plot to spread the virus throughout the world using the diary of his dead friend, Asakawa. In Loop, protagonist discovers that he is actually a clone of Ryuji, who realized he was living in an artificial world right before his death and asked the outside world to help him escape. Kaoru realizes that he is the cure to the virus that afflicts his girlfriend, Reiko, and is implanted into the Loop; in order to obtain the cure to the virus to save his girlfriend, he has to die. When in the Loop, Kaoru is reborn through Sadako instead of Ryuji, and Kaoru from then on lives under the name of Ryuji Takayama. After six months of research, Kaoru/Ryuji creates a vaccine for the Ring virus, a sample of which he gives to Ando. The vaccine is then mass-produced, neutralizing the effects of the Ring virus. He also creates a virus designed to accelerate the Sadako clones' aging rate and kill them, ridding the Loop of Sadako Yamamura forever. However, the virus also affects Ryuji, and