Saruyama

Saruyama Kenichi, Rito's best friend in To Love-Ru, has a very normal student appearance. He has short, slightly spiked black hair, often with a messy look. His eyes are very dark and expressive, always showing his most exaggerated emotions and his entire comedic or slightly perverted side. He is commonly seen wearing the standard Sainan uniform, consisting of a white shirt, a green tie, and dark pants. His build is very skinny. In the story, he acts as his loyal classmate, almost always ending up involved by pure accident in the fun alien mix-ups. Regarding his personality, he is a very fun, super cheerful, and totally perverted young man. He is dying of envy of Rito's tremendous luck with girls and, curiously enough, is blindly in love with the beautiful Riko (which is Rito girl version). If you dont have idea for show Saruyama personality, just think about him like a Johnny Bravo (but without muscles) and a Beatlejuice (but without powers), a energic boy who thinks by the "other head" (the head between his legs). The etymology of his name and editorial records provide insights into his role in the work's comic relief. The surname "Saruyama" (猿山) combines the ideograms for "monkey" (saru) and "mountain" (yama), a direct reference to the lecherous and hyperactive behavior commonly associated with primates in Japanese satire. The given name "Kenichi" (健一), composed of "healthy/strong" (ken) and "one" (ichi), creates irony regarding his permanent status as a failed bachelor, despite his surprising physical resilience to comedic traumas. Additionally, it's noticeable that no character throughout the entire publication—including his closest friends like Rito or Lala—refers to him by his given name, addressing him strictly by his surname, which reinforces his distance from the series' core emotional intimacy. Saruyama's psychology is defined by an explicit perversion, manifested by the presence of posters and magazines of bikini models in his room and by constant attempts to spy on female students in hot springs or locker rooms. Unlike Rito, whose purity and shyness make him an accidental magnet for girls, Saruyama actively seeks female attention through schemes that frequently fail. In the To Love-Ru manga (specifically in chapter 24, contained in Volume 3), the animal cafe conceived by Kenichi Saruyama was the attraction that class 1-A prepared for the Sainan High School Cultural Festival. The event was originally known as Animal Cafe. Saruyama's idea: Initially, the boys in the class thought his suggestion was terrible. However, Saruyama's true plan came to light when he revealed the uniforms he had prepared: extremely revealing and cute animal costumes for the girls in the class. The Change of Opinion: The moment the girls—including Haruna Sairenji (dressed as a kitten), Lala Deviluke, and the other classmates—returned from the locker room wearing their ecchi outfits, the male students instantly changed their minds and began to support the project wholeheartedly. Success and Rivalry: The Animal Café became a huge financial success at the festival, attracting many customers (and thrilling the school's perverted Principal). This resounding success caught the attention and sparked the rivalry of Saki Tenjouin, who makes her first appearance in the story precisely in this arc to try and compete with the popularity of Rito's class. As an indispensable figure in the comedic and structural ecosystem of To Love-Ru, Saruyama Kenichi accumulates highly strategic participations in the anime and manga, consistently acting as the driving force behind absurd and ecchi situations for the protagonist Rito Yūki. His story begins in the very first chapter of the manga and the first episode of the anime, where he acts as Rito's telephone confidant after his first attempt to confess to Haruna Sairenji; later, in the summer school arc on the coast, he leads a nighttime raid on the girls' room in chapter eighteen of the manga, indirectly forcing Rito and Haruna to get closer. In the anime, his presence is elevated to extreme levels of comic relief in the sixth episode, when he voluntarily undresses on the roof to distract Lala (suffering a painful pinch on the navel) while the alien Ghi Bree kidnaps Haruna, and in episode eighteen, which stands out as his most memorable participation when he takes care of a pregnant alien wolf who falls in love with him and wants him as the father of her pup, a dynamic that ends bittersweetly. Another unsurpassable milestone in his journey occurs in the manga and anime To Love-Ru, when he falls madly in love with Riko Yūsaki, the female version of Rito created by an invention of Lala, resulting in a romantic encounter full of fantasies that ends abruptly when Rito's transformation undone right at the moment of Saruyama's declaration. Finally, even demonstrating superhuman physical resistance by surviving attacks from Golden Darkness and even a crocodile attack in the Trouble Quest arc, his role in To Love-Ru Darkness takes on a secondary aspect, in which he expresses deep envy of Rito's harem and joins forces with the school principal in perverse pursuits that systematically fail, solidifying his legacy as the eternal and loyal unlucky hero of the franchise.