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is a fictional character from the Kingdom Hearts series. He comes from Destiny Islands and is a friend of Sora, the protagonist, and Kairi. Riku is derived from the Japanese word for , in comparison with and . He is voiced by actor David Gallagher for the English versions of the Kingdom Hearts games and by Mamoru Miyano in the Japanese versions.
Kingdom Hearts
Riku is the anti-hero of the first game in the Kingdom Hearts series,and his journey mirrors Sora's in many ways. At 15 years old, Riku is a year older than Sora and Kairi, and comes across as cool, confident, and capable. His need to escape the stagnant, known world of Destiny Islands and explore the world(s) beyond drives many of his actions and choices at the start of his journey in Kingdom Hearts. Riku is the one who decides to build the raft on which he, Sora, and Kairi plan to sail away from their home at the start of the game.
However, the three main characters never get to begin that journey together. The day before they are going to leave, Riku opens the door to the heart of Destiny Islands, letting in the Heartless, which subsequently tear the world apart. When Sora finds him on that night as the Heartless are attacking the islands, Riku speaks to him as one who has already been seduced by the darkness, urging Sora to join him. The weakness of Riku's heart, to destroy his home and friends for his own ambitions, begins the contest between him and Sora for possession of the Keyblade.
Having willingly entered and accepted the darkness, Riku ends up at Hollow Bastion, where Maleficent convinces him to work for her in exchange for helping him find his friends. After kidnapping Alice and some of the other Princesses of Heart for Maleficent, the fairy finally leads Riku to the Traverse Town Reunion where he finds Sora again, along with Donald Duck and Goofy.
Since he came to her service, Maleficent has been slowly poisoning Riku's heart, trying to convince him that Sora no longer cares about him and Kairi. When Riku finds Sora in the company of new friends, he is finally convinced that her lies are true. From that point, Riku decides to search for Kairi alone, and his actions and intentions become darker and darker.
After Riku kidnaps Princess Jasmine from Agrabah for Maleficent, Maleficent reveals Kairi's location to Riku. The problem is that Kairi is a mere shell without her heart, and so Riku sets about the task of reanimating her or getting her heart back.
His first attempt at accomplishing this is to kidnap Pinocchio from Monstro. Riku believes he might be able to learn how to help Kairi by studying how the puppet-boy is alive. However, Sora is also in Monstro at the same time, and he foils Riku's plans. This is the turning point in their relationship. They fight one last battle together, and Riku once more tempts Sora to join him.(If Sora defeated Riku in Hollow Bastion before the following point, instead of the next scene happening, Sora will remark about how this "Riku" is merely an impostor) Sora decides that Riku is doing the wrong thing, and challenges him to a fight. Rather than fight Sora, Riku opens a portal and returns to Captain Hook's pirate ship, where he promises Kairi he will bring her back and Maleficent grants him the power to control the Heartless.
When Sora reaches Captain Hook's pirate ship in Neverland, Riku is waiting for him, taunting Sora with the fact he found Kairi first and accusing Sora of being late for lack of caring. He presents Sora with Sora's corrupted shadow before dropping him below deck and the mercy of the Heartless. When Sora battles his way to the hold to rescue Kairi, Riku escapes with her, leaving Sora to battle Anti-Sora. Using the interdimensional corridors of darkness all the way back to Hollow Bastion from the pirate ship, Riku tests the limits of his powers and nearly loses his Heart in the process.
By the time Sora arrives at Hollow Bastion, Riku has completely turned against him under Maleficent's influence once she revealed to Riku that he was the one meant to wield the Keyblade. Prior to the first confrontation with Sora, Riku was dealing with the Beast who was intent to rescue Belle. Riku seriously injured the Beast and took the Keyblade from Sora, telling him he was nothing more than an errand boy to bring him the Keyblade. He left Sora with nothing but a wooden practice sword that he had used on the Destiny Islands, as Donald and Goofy follow Riku on their orders from King Mickey to stay with the Keyblade.
Riku displays some rather incredible powers, having just traversed the corridors of darkness without a vessel and still having enough dark power to spare to defeat the Beast. All this is due to the incredible strength of Riku’s heart and Riku knows it. This is his undoing however, as Riku forgets what is really important to him and attacks Sora when his friend confronts him again. Tainted by darkness and riddled with hypocrisy, Riku’s heart is weakened and Sora proves that Riku was not so far ahead of him after all, regaining the Keyblade. An enraged Riku digs his grave deeper when he strikes back against the new Keyblade Master and only proves how little he deserves the mystic sword.
Bested and confused, Riku is approached by a shadowy figure who offers him words of console and the chance to reclaim the superiority he’s always felt he had over Sora. Riku accepts but he finds out too late the error of his ways. The true villain behind the Heartless, Xehanort, using the name Ansem, makes his presence known and confronts Sora using a Keyblade forged from the power of the Princesses of Heart and Riku’s body. Sora’s eventual victory is hollow at best as Xehanort discards Riku’s body and recreates his own. Riku does, however, make one final stand against the invading darkness, fighting off Xehanort for a brief moment allowing Sora and Kairi to escape.
Riku manages to buy his friends some time but even his heart is not powerful enough to keep from being pulled into the world of darkness, where all wandering hearts must eventually go. His faith in the darkness shaken, Riku is slowly ripped apart by the power of the dark realm, only his determination to see Sora and Kairi again sustain him in the darkness. But Riku’s presence does not go unnoticed, King Mickey, having obtained the Keyblade of the dark world, comes to his aid and the pair prepare to close the final door. At the end of the game, Riku regains his body after Xehanort is defeated and assists Sora in closing the door between the realm of light and darkness. Unfortunately, Riku and King Mickey must stay behind the door in order to close it. Riku leaves Sora with one request: "Take care of her."
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Riku somehow escaped the realm of darkness and appeared in the deepest basement of Castle Oblivion alone. Vexen theorized that Riku’s appearance in Castle Oblivion was because his existence resonates with that of Sora, who was at Castle Oblivion at the time.
While Sora ascended the thirteen floors of Castle Oblivion from the ground level, Riku had to move up from the twelve basement floors of the castle to the ground level, fighting Lexaeus & Zexion , members of Organization XIII on the way. He was also forced to face a Riku Replica created by Vexen. Like Sora, Riku's powers were being sought by members of a mysterious orginization to manipulate him to counter Sora, who was being sought by three other members of the Organization. This proved to not be an easy task, as Riku was said to be afraid of the darkness, or rather, that allowing it into his heart would mean a repeat in events that would lead him to be lost in darkness again, and he remembered that the darkness led to Ansem controlling his body. He also met DiZ who at first disguised himself as Ansem and presented Riku with choices regarding the darkness.
However, each time Riku was nearly overcome with darkness, a light was always there to guide him and assure him that he was not evil, despite being dark. The light was King Mickey, who ended up helping Riku overcome his darkness. Riku realized the darkness is a part of him and his friends will not hate him for being dark, and decided to fight those who intend to use it against him, even when Naminé offered to seal the darkness from him forever. Riku confronted the remains of Ansem, which lived on in Riku's heart as a corruption of the darkness within him, and defeated him.
Having come to terms with who he is, Riku knows that he is neither completely dark nor completely light, he and Mickey leave Castle Oblivion. However, Diz stops them at the cross roads and askes which road they will take. The path to darkness, or light. They chose the middle road, what Diz called the road to nightfall, but Riku said it was the road to dawn. Riku also knows that despite his victory, a trace of Ansem still remains. Still, he will stop at nothing to defeat him, and to be rightfully reunited with his friends Sora and Kairi. At the resolution of the story Riku has become innumerably more powerful and has come to terms with who he is; this, however, will not last long.
Gameplay
Unlike Sora, Riku plays with a closed deck, which means that he is unable to create, arrange or rearrange his own deck. Instead, his deck changes as he proceeds deeper into Castle Oblivion.Riku has the ability to enter "Dark Mode" when he has broken enough cards, and when he takes enough damage. He returns to normal when he is completely depleted of DP (Dark Points can be raised when he levels-up). When in Dark Mode, Riku becomes more agile; he can jump higher, evade at larger distances (even jump towards the target enemy's back), and his combos become much stronger. It is only when Riku is in Dark Mode that he can use his 3 main sleights; Dark Break, Dark Firaga (non-elemental), and Dark Aura. Advantages of his closed deck is that he can use any of the Enemy Cards he has, and he can reload his deck much faster. The disadvantage is that Riku has a harder time healing during battle, as fewer cards that can heal are available.
Kingdom Hearts II
Before the events of Kingdom Hearts II, Riku is asked by DiZ to locate and capture a member of Organization XIII, Roxas, with the belief that it will help Sora awaken from his slumber. Riku loses in his first encounter with Roxas. He realizes then that to fight in the realm of darkness he will have to surmise himself in that same darkness. To use this power, Riku had to immerse himself in the darkness, which has the unexpected consequence of him taking on the appearance of Xehanort's Heartless. When Riku brings Roxas back to DiZ in Twilight Town, he was introducing himself as Ansem. This is a symbolic gesture that represents that Riku is willing to give up all that he is and become something dark, being "Ansem" in order to repent for his foolishness.
Riku agrees to help DiZ as they share a common objective: eliminate Xemnas, the Superior of Organization XIII and the Nobody of Xehanort. However, Riku wanted no part in DiZ's revenge and remained only to see Sora's restoration. After this, Riku meets up with King Mickey again and asks him not to reveal his present condition to Sora, although Riku still wishes to help with Sora’s journey. He provides Mickey with a munny pouch and a blue crystal from the virtual Twilight Town, which the King passes on to Sora.
Riku remains in Xehanort's Heartless' form for the majority of Kingdom Hearts II. In the Land of Dragons, Riku warns the Emperor of a upcoming powerful Heartless and encounters Sora, who mistakes him for an Organization XIII member, resulting in a battle. At Hollow Bastion, Riku gives Sora a photo of Roxas and his friends in the virtual Twilight Town. In The World That Never Was, Riku appears cloaked before Kairi and Naminé when the two girls are confronted by Saïx. While reluctant to show his face, he allows Kairi to remove his hood. Kairi, wishing to see Riku after so long, takes everything in a stride, knowing that Riku is only wearing Xehanort's Heartless' appearance, and is still himself at heart. Riku gives Kairi a Keyblade and the two fight off Heartless together. Riku and Kairi are then reunited with Sora. The energy from the explosion caused by DiZ's machine restores Riku to his "true form," revealing an older Riku still cloaked and blindfolded, which he removes to reveal a new outfit and also reveals that Riku is the famous Blindfolded Unknown from the Secret Movie, Another side, Another story... and Another Side, Another Story dive . After this, Riku becomes a selectable party member for The World That Never Was. He wields a Keyblade called "Way to the Dawn" which is a transfigured version of the sword Maleficent gave him, the Soul Eater. The name is a reference to Riku's ending in "Chain of Memories". Sora and Riku’s co-op move, Eternal Session, is the most powerful team attack in Kingdom Hearts II. The final boss battles against Xemnas are fought by Riku and Sora alone. During one part of the final boss fight, Riku even takes a hit for Sora, resulting in an injury that he is still reeling from after the battle, walking with a visible limp and unable to move at all without Sora's help. In the last battle against Xemnas, Riku is a playable character for a small part of the game while Sora is trapped. Also during the battle, Xemnas taunts Riku asking "Are you sure you're not jealous of Sora?" Riku hints at this comment and his opinion on it during his later conversation with Sora. After Xemnas's defeat, he and Sora are left in the realm of nothingness of Destiny Islands where the two discuss their thoughts and mutual respect for each other. He finds a note written by Kairi, and gives it to Sora to read. When Sora is done reading the letter, the "door to light" opens and Riku returns home to Destiny Islands with Sora and they are reunited with all of their friends.
Right up until the end of the game Riku expresses a profound sense of guilt about his "giving in to the darkness", a fear that he apparently had conquered during the events of "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories". This continued fear of the power of his darkness implies that Riku has developed a self-deprecating personality and that he places many burdens on himself in the mistaken belief that it is the way to redemption for crimes for which he has already atoned. Another interesting thing to note is that after his reunion Riku seems much less competitive with Sora for Kairi's affections; this may stem from the previously mentioned guilt that he holds with him or rather from a new sense of brotherly concern for his younger friends. In the end Riku's story is about finding balance, between light and dark and, later, between irresponsible needs for freedom and overcritical needs for control. Kingdom Hearts characters | Computer and video game anti-heroes | Fictional teenagers
"Riku (Kingdom Hearts)"