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Rui Ninomiya
Rui
Kanji

爾乃美家 累

Rōmaji

Ninomiya Rui

English

Ninomiya Rui

Characteristics
Race

Human

Gender

Male

Birthday

April 25, 1997

Age

18 (first season), 19 (Insight)

Height

168 cm

Hair Color

Black

Eye Color

Light Blue

Blood Type

O

Personal Status
Status

Active

Position

G-100

Voice Actor

Ayumu Murase
Shannon Emerick (Sentai Filmworks dub)

First Appearance
Anime Debut

Episode 2

Rui Ninomiya is one of Gatchaman Crowds main characters, he is a prodigy who created GALAX and X. He was used in an elaborate plan by Berg Katse to destroy Earth. He also goes by the pseudonym LOAD among the GALAX community and when going out in public.

Appearance

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Rui Ninomiya

Rui is a young man with short black hair, green eyes, and red glasses. As Rui, he usually wears a light blue coat over a white shirt with black accents and black pants and shoes. When he worked as LOAD he crossdresses when going out in public, most of them involve a blonde wig (save for one disguise where he uses a long black haired wig). The most common of which is a punk rock design with a black dress and high boots with a blonde wig worn in a ponytail.

Personality

Rui is an idealist who strives to make the current society better through GALAX to help others just for the sake of it. He sees society as flawed and believes that it is his duty to improve it. Rui also sees the notion of superheroes like the Gatchaman as a threat to his vision of an 'Updated World' as people might rely on them to solve all major problems. Despite having gained power, he refuses to use his NOTE unless in dire circumstances like emergency situations. He views X as his only real friend until getting help from the G-Crew. When selecting members of the Hundred, Rui only looks for people who will not abuse their power for their own misguided judgment.

Later when Berg Katse steals X and his NOTE, Rui opens up to others especially after he sees the side effects of CROWDS. He even does a public apology that he previously stated was just an excuse by politicians.

Plot

A boy (who presents/dresses femininely most of the time) living on the top floor in the high-class mansion-apartment building Glorious Tower Toyosu in Tokyo's Koto ward. He believes that the current Japan is extremely boring, and is doing many things in order to speed up and update the world's clocks. He also possesses his own NOTE, colored purple with a different logo on the cover.

His NOTE was pulled out of him by Berg Katse and in episode 8 Berg takes advantage of that fact. The NOTES logo has a diamond shape instead of a stylized bird logo like the Gatchaman. This is possibly because his power was given to him by Berg Katse and not J.J.

History 

Crowds

Rui had educated himself through the internet and had learned to write code from observing hackers from around the world. At some point he moved into the mansion-apartment Glorious Tower Toyosu in Tokyo's Koto ward where he set up shop as LOAD. At some point he was found by Berg Katse who extracted Rui's spiritual essence to create a NOTE which allowed Rui to use CROWDS. Rui however was reluctant to use it even during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which caused a lot of casualties.

Several years later, he was visited time and again by Katse to use his power. But Rui had only used it for emergency situations such as the falling rail car. He later dismisses a user who thought to make Japan a better place by killing the politicians. During the collapse of a tunnel where Rui uses Crowds, Rui encounters the Gatchaman Hajime Ichinose who introduces herself by removing her mask. Rui then arranges for Hajime to meet him with Utsutsu and Sugane also appearing. There, he tries to convince them to stop being heroes but Hajime decides to go through with it anyway. Rui finds her interesting as she leaves.

Rui encounters Berg Katse again and tries to have the Hundred defeat him, but Katse overpowers them all and Rui is hurt. Sugane appears and helps him treat his wounds while Rui explains his purpose for the CROWDS. Rui then walks away depressed and encounters Katse again who takes Rui's appearance and NOTE. This allows him to control X and CROWDS. Rui upset at what happened encounters a girl who's father is in the hospital after he used CROWDS. Rui assures herfather will be fine before walking off where he meets Hajime again. Hajime brings him to her apartment where he meets the rest of the G-Crew and asks for their help in dealing with Katse.

During the battle against the rampaging CROWDS, Rui gives out information to others. He is later given his NOTE back by O.D where he uses the CROWDS app to get people to help out in certain situations. With the battle over, Rui is relieved that he regained X and saw the world update.

Insight

A year later, Rui became a Gatchaman and helped the G-Crew stop an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Suguyama by the terrorist organization VAPE .


Launch

While Rizumu's surprise appearance shook Rui, it did not waver his principals and beliefs that humanity could evolve beyond its prejudices and violence. Joe called him naive and warned him that people like Rizumu are the reason humanity needs heroes. During an attack by a massive outbreak of red Crowds on Tachikawa, Rui was contacted by Rizumu to surrender his NOTE if he wanted to save the citizens of the city. Believing his word, Rui met him and de-transformed to ask why he hated the CROWDS and debating his ideals with the terrorist.

After talking Rui handed over his NOTE saying that Rizumu is a not a bad person, just misguided. At first it seems his words moved Rizumu, but it was a farce by the VAPE leader to drive Rui into despair and slowly kill him by stabbing his NOTE repeatedly with a bowie knife. Rizumu said that Rui's principles were what would kill him, not him, continuing to stab the NOTE as Rui writhed in pain and kept losing blood. However, Tsubasa comes to save Rui and leaps toward Rizumu despite Rui's protests not to interfere.

Abilities

Intelligence

Rui is a vastly intelligent young man who considers his intellect his trump card. He is trilingual, being able to speak English, Japanese, and Chinese. After educating himself using educational websites and learning how to write code from hackers around the world, he developed the social networking services GALAX and X.

Gatchaman form

Transport: Rui's Gatchaman form can teleport through electronic devices to any location he wishes to be and the "X" wheel on his back can act as a portal to transport his Gatchaman teammates to his location. He can also use the portal to quickly get to another location for shorter distances, as his electronic transport takes time and concentration to reconstitute himself.

X Saucer:Rui uses a circular disc attached to his hip and attaches it to one of his arms, the disc then spins rapidly and fires discharges of electricity at the target.

Digitize: Rui releases a burst of electricity that reverts rouge CROWDS into stasis cube form. he then uses the ability to transport the soul the avatar consists of back to its body.

NOTE

Rui's NOTE

Rui's NOTE

Rui was given a purple NOTE with a diamond emblem (later given a Gatchaman emblem) that can control the avatars of human souls called CROWDS via an app on the GALAX social network, given by Rui to hand picked individuals called The Hundred. In Gatchaman Crowds insight, Rui uses his note to transform into his Gatchaman form and its diamond emblem in the center has changed into the Gatchaman symbol, symbolizing his role as a hero.

Rui's G-form

Rui's Gatchaman form

Trivia 

  • Rui's crossdressing as a girl and a companion named President X are references or nods to the original Berg Katse from the 1972 series.
  • Rui uses a Microsoft Surface to monitor GALAX when he is outside.
  • While Rui's gender identity may be up for debate by some viewers, he is consistently grouped among male characters in profiles and series artwork where's not shown in his LOAD guise, while O.D. is pointedly not counted with "the boys" (owing to their identity being outside the binary while having feminine expression). It is also to note that his actor, Ayumu Murase, would seem to have been cast for being a young man who could perform androgynous roles due to his youthful appearance and voice.
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