Ryuji Yamazaki°•

Name: Ryuji Yamazaki
Date of Birth: August 8, 1963
Age: 33 years old.
Height: 192cm
Weight: 96 kg
Blood Type: A
Occupation: Gangster, Assassin, Dojo Buster.
Tastes: Everything that has to do with your personal benefit.
Hates: Money laundering (because it is nothing new to him and because it is boring) and euphemisms.
Hobbies: Collecting knives.
Favorite Food: Sashimi (with horse meat).
Special Ability: He has no problem going three days without sleep.
Weapons: Knife.
Fighting Style: Personal killing arts + cutting attacks.

Ryuji Yamazaki is a character from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters, first appearing in KOF '97. Ryuji is a Hakkesshu of Orochi.

Fatal Fury:
Yamazaki never had any parents to respect, so from a young age he fell in with the wrong crowd. Eventually, after years of being a petty criminal, he fell under the tutelage of a major crime boss, where he quickly rose to become his right-hand man. One day Yamazaki and his boss went to a warehouse to make an illegal deal, the guy sensed something was wrong and told his superior. The boss laughed but Yamazaki stuck to his gun. Unfortunately, the deal was a trap, and both Ryuji and his boss fell victim to it at the hands of rival gangs (which occurs in the opening of Fatal Fury 3), leading to the death of Ryuji's boss. The death of the only "father" he ever had before his eyes drove him insane. He is now a psychopath and mentally unbalanced.

In 1995, Yamazaki was hired by Jin Chonrei and Jin Chonshu to protect them and manages to find Terry early on.

The King of Fighters:
While having fun at a local dojo, Yamazaki was challenged by an Englishman named Billy Kane who worked as a bodyguard for Geese Howard, Southtown's top crime boss. Yamazaki initially refused Billy's offer to join him and participate in the KOF tournament, but after fighting and horribly humiliating one of the warriors, he felt adrenaline rush through his blood, having a great need to fight and kill, eventually accepting Kane's offer. It is later revealed that Yamazaki was a descendant of the Hakkesshu race.

During subsequent NESTS tournaments, Yamazaki did not participate for unknown reasons. He eventually returned in the 2003 tournament to participate with Billy Kane and Gato as part of another plan by Geese Howard to take control of Southtown.

At the end of the tournament, relations became strained between the team members, culminating in a fight between them. Gato, despised by his teammates (who were obviously not the best of friends), simply abandoned them, appearing in the sequel title KOF XI. However, Billy and Yamazaki continued to fight alongside each other, having no involvement in KOF XI. This did not seem to be all, although the disappearance of the characters was not really explained.

However, Yamazaki made his return in The King of Fighters XIV as the second downloadable character retaining some of his moves, repeating in The King of Fighters XV now teaming up with Billy and Geese and wearing ostentatious attire.

Yamazaki has psychopathic tendencies with a love for materialistic items and money. He is the calm, reserved and confident gangster one moment and the crazy, volatile and hysterical one the next. He enjoys beating, smashing, cutting and most importantly cruelly and mercilessly torturing and killing any and all of his opponents. He unconsciously keeps his right hand in his pocket, because his idol once praised the power of that particular fist. He also carries a knife with him at all times which he seems to have a certain degree of affinity for.

He does not want to be involved with Orochi and the Hakkesshu in any way. However, due to his own sheer will and stubbornness, he has been able to resist losing his mind to The Riot of the Blood, something that not even Iori Yagami himself was able to do. When he encounters the New Faces team, his blood boils and he laughs hysterically at them.

A man with a strong, muscular build, white skin, and a face with a defined jaw. Dark brown eyes and dark eyebrows with a frown. He has dark hair on the sides, and short blonde hair combed back on top. He is wearing a black long-sleeved turtleneck shirt, a classic black vest, classic black pants with a black belt with a silver buckle, black leather dress shoes, and his signature white polar bear fur coat that covers most of his body. (He takes off his coat when he's going to fight.) He carries a sharp knife hanging on the side of his hip.

In contrast to most other combatants in fighting games, Yamazaki does not use any particular martial arts, he is a self-taught fighter, and uses a wide variety of attacks in his fighting, including unfair and underhanded moves such as kicking sand into his opponent's eyes, and his ever-present knife. He also rarely takes his right hand out of his pocket unless he is using his knife or desperation moves.

Yamazaki fights using his instincts, much like a wild animal. He has little interest in technique, instead relying on brutal and ruthless tactics to win his fights, such as when he uses the headbutt and repeatedly hits his opponent to create an explosion.

Sadoumasou - Yamazaki provokes the opponent by sticking out his tongue. If the opponent attacks, he counterattacks with a hook that resembles a small hurricane.
Screw Blow - a powerful forearm blow.
Hebi Tsukai - Yamazaki performs a double punch. This attack can be held, released and cancelled. He does it downwards, upwards and as a ranged attack.
Bombshell Badda-Bing - Yamazaki grabs his opponent and slams his body into it. When he does so, he creates a small explosion.
Judgement Dagger - Yamazaki attacks his opponent with a dagger. C Delivers a total of 4 slashes. A Delivers a total of 2 slashes.
Double Return - performs an upward elbow punch. It looks like a hook, but actually hits with the elbow. It can disappear and return an A and C projectile respectively.
Fight of Tempering - Yamazaki kicks out with sand and then brings his leg down to knock the opponent to the ground.
Spray Sand - kicks out sand.
Insanity from Nightmare - Yamazaki's SDM; he stabs the opponent to the ground and proceeds to stomp on them a bunch (11 to be exact) and finishes with a mid-air kick.
Guillotine - Yamazaki's SDM; he jumps and grabs the opponent to drag them along the ground and then throws them with a kick. In its most powerful version, the number of kicks increases as well as the time in which he drags the opponent.
Drill - Yamazaki's SDM; he delivers a hook that knocks his opponent to the ground, then laughs like a maniac and starts kicking and punching wildly and ends with a hook so powerful that a small tornado is generated. In its most powerful version, the number of stomps and punches he delivers to the opponent increases initially.
Whip - Yamazaki's SDM: Grabs the opponent by the neck and hits him until he finishes with a hook so powerful that a small tornado is generated. In the most powerful form, the hits are increased and the tornado reduces more damage.

This is Yamazaki's HSDM from KOF 2002; he grabs the opponent and throws him to the ground, then pulls out two knives and gives him a total of 38 cuts, then sends him to the opposite side of the ground, grabbing him with a bite. This attack is also used as LDM in KOF 2003, only slower.

In the Orochi bloodline storyline for King of Fighters 96 and King of Fighters 97, his rebelliousness and stubborn attitude allowed him to retain the Orochi power without sacrificing his autonomy, unlike Iori Yagami and Leona Heidern.
One of his main attacks is the Hebi Tsukai (Charmer's Slash/Snake Slash), a quick arm attack, very similar to the attack of a cobra. He has another attack of desperation movements known as Drill "Drill", where at the end of the last blow he executes a wind that resembles a rattlesnake's tail, until the very end of Kof 2003, Billy Kane comes to refer to Yamazaki as a viper and where he comes to act like one of them by opening his mouth and sticking out his tongue when they attack. This coincides with the fact that Orochi is represented as an eight-headed snake-demon.
Yamazaki is arguably one of the most difficult King of Fighters characters to master, as his fighting style revolves primarily around counterattacks, targeted counterattacks, and very damaging close-range techniques. Yamazaki's moveset also includes some somewhat difficult-to-employ counterattack moves. Despite all of these difficult moves to learn, there is no shortage of Yamazaki players, and his reputation as an outright "psychopath" has been enough to make him a frequent inclusion on many players' teams.
His hairstyle is suspiciously similar to Leopold Goenitz, who also belongs to the Orochi bloodline. Additionally, Yamazaki made his debut in King of Fighters 97, a year after Goenitz's disappearance in 1996. Rumors have it that they are related by blood as relatives, but there is no existing confirmation of this. Extra art in the Sega Saturn and PlayStation versions of King of Fighters 97 shows a bald Yamazaki and Goenitz fighting each other over a wig.

He is a tribute to the Yakuza gangster movies made during the 1960s.
In the King of Fighters series, Yamazaki is always seen wearing the long black shirt and a black vest over it. However, in King of Fighters 2003, he is not wearing his vest, instead he is wearing a short black shirt. This is not his first time with such a change; this was his original outfit in his first appearance in Fatal Fury 3. He also wears this in the Capcom vs. SNK series.
Because it never made it into a mainstream game due to its popularity, few know that Yamazaki was originally a sub-boss character, being a hidden sub-boss in Fatal Fury 3 before the player being abducted to other dimensions by Chonshu.
Yamazaki appears as Blue Mary's Striker in King of Fighters 2000, and appears as an unlockable Striker in the Dreamcast version of King of Fighters 99 and in King of Fighters EX for the Game Boy Advance.
Kouji Ishii has voiced Yamazaki since his debut.
For unknown reasons, Yamazaki has a special victory stance against Yuri Sakazaki in Capcom Vs SNK
In CAPCOM vs SNK, Yamazaki taunts Terry Bogard about his brother, Andy, being missing and throws the knife at him, seemingly indicating that he has something to do with it.
The only instances where Yamazaki takes his right hand out of his pocket is when using his Hydra's Judgment, Double Return, Sand Spray Kick, and Sado-Masochism moves. The rest of the time, he only strikes with his left hand (disregarding his reflection when looking away). This seems to be due to the fact that he hides his knife in his pocket, and keeps his hand on it at all times. He also seems to have a special affection for his knife.

Yamazaki hysterically laughs at the three members of the New Face Team (Yashiro, Shermie, and Chris) in the introduction of their fight in any of their matching appearances, possibly due to their Orochi lineage or a possible taunt.
Yamazaki's counter move has been called Sado-Masochism since its debut, because it involves Yamazaki taunting his opponent and counterattacking after being hit in the face. The only exception was in the Capcom vs. SNK series, where the move's name was softened to Taunt and Counter.
Yamazaki's knife moves (Judgment Dagger, Drill Special) cause heavy blood effects in King of Fighters 02, but in 03 the blood effects do not appear due to censorship.
Although it's somewhat difficult to notice due to his placement, Yamazaki appears in a background in KOF: Maximum Impact. He can be seen in the Downtown stage (in the daytime), but only in a certain area of ​​the battle arena. Yamazaki is standing with his back turned on the subway bridge, mostly hidden behind a pillar in the arena... he's also wearing his signature white fur coat that he throws around violently in the intro to his fights. He also appears in a stage in King of Fighters '95, next to Blue Mary in the Arcade stage.
Yamazaki made his first appearance in a non-King of Fighters game (Fatal Fury 3), unlike the other characters with Orochi blood, who all made their debut in the King of Fighters series.
It appears on a poster on a pillar of the Mexican pyramid stage in KOF 2002. The poster is very similar to the "wanted criminal" one, which makes one think about Yamazaki's history in Mexico as a criminal. On the same stage appear King and Tizoc among others.

Kof XIV dlc
In KOF 2003, if Yamazaki stands still for 20 seconds, he will have an alternate waiting pose, moving around like crazy. However, if a move is performed, he will return to normal.
When KOF '97 was released, it was thought that he had some relation to Leopold Goenitz due to his appearance.
He only uses his dark powers with his right hand.
Due to the savagery and violence of his Desperation Moves, the blood in them is censored. From XIV onwards he no longer appears with his knife.
In KOF XIV, he is the only character in the series who can use various objects as weapons (something very similar to the video game Agressors of Dark Combat) when he is in a different stage. This is seen in his Climax Move.