Ryoma Takebayashi

Ryoma Takebayashi (竹林 竜馬, Takebayashi Ryōma) is the main protagonist of the series.

Appearance
In his former appearance, he looks like a muscular man with slightly better then average height, with black slightly graying hair and black eyes. He had an intimidating aura.

His current appearance is average with a gentle aura, with dark brown hair and eyes. His hair style is short but varies by series, with the novels being the most generic, the anime the most stylized, and the manga somewhere between the two styles, sometimes appearing closer to one than the other. In the old web novel his appearance is explicitly mentioned to have been modified by one of the gods, though it is unknown if this is the case for the other series.

Personality
Ryoma is a kind person who cares for others when they need help. As a result, he tends to overreact to his mistakes; when he fixes them, people are surprised as the Earth standards do not exist in the new world. (His giving of holidays to his employees at Laundry Agency Bamboo Forest surprised them; since he had worked for an exploitive company, he wished never to inflict that horror on them). The only real disappointment he suffered when he learned he died was learning he died in a lame way.

As he has 42 years of experience, it surprised adults that an 11 year old kid could be so rational, well-learned and mature; though he is suffering infantile regression of his emotional maturity due to his young body, making it very hard to mask or contain his emotions. Beyond that Ryoma retains all memory of his Earth life; allowing him to think outside the box where others would get stuck.

While he lovingly remember his mother, he has nothing but bitter memories of his father; heavily implying he is the one person Ryoma hates. A flashback shows Ryoma being bullied as a kid at school, with the bully missing his head with a punch and hitting a wall and hurting his hand. His father was called in and abusively beat him up in front of the teacher, who did NOTHING all the while shouting at him how violence was wrong and never giving Ryoma a chance to speak. This trauma is primarily the reason Ryoma hates violence.

Background
Ryoma was a lonely, 39-year-old man from Earth, Japan who led a life filled with hardships until he died from a brain hemorrhage in his sleep. In the afterlife, he is greeted by three gods (Gain, Kufo and Lulutia) who grow fond of him and send him to another world as a child, where he makes use of his innate knowledge and abilities, combined with the gods' blessings to live a new life filled with challenges and happy meetings.

Before he reincarnated, he had hobbies like watching anime, playing games, and reading manga and light novels. His life could be described as extremely plain (or in another sense, tragic), He was overloaded with work, and to himself, perhaps without any purpose, as indicated when he wasn't surprised nor saddened after his own death. He had never experienced a romantic relationship. He practiced meditation every day and had been trained in different martial arts from a young age. After he was reincarnated into the fantasy world, he kept all of the skills he accumulated from his previous life on Earth.

History
Due to growing tired of dealing with people, Ryoma lives in the forest that he was reincarnated in for three years with little to no thought of leaving.

Ryoma later learns from the Gods and accepts that despite his past life's memories, he has the mentality of a child. Thus he has to go through maturing emotionally all over again.

Monsters

 * Slimes mentioned, but Ryoma doesn't own:
 * Meat Slime - A slime that was fed only meat, and evolved into something resembling a moving chunk of meat.
 * Tree Slime - A slime that's nucleus acted as a seed, which eventually sprouted a tree. The tree eventually roots itself to the ground, and the slime becomes incapable of moving anywhere.  The tree could potentially be chopped for lumber.  Not sure what happens to the slime afterwords.


 * Possible slime evolutions, based on what they are eating:
 * WN Ch 120: Acid slime that likes eating the neutralized chemical from caustic soda (soap making). Acid slime that likes eating the completed soap.
 * WN Ch 141: Slimes similar to the Stone Slime but show a response to other types of stones, such as magic stones, ores, or gems.
 * WN Ch 199: Parasite slime, Ceramic slime.
 * Potentially a slime for every type of magic Ryoma can use.
 * Other types of magic:
 * Mud magic - A fusion of earth and water attributes.
 * Metal magic - A fusion of earth and fire attributes.
 * Other uncontracted monsters:
 * Running Mush
 * Skills: Generate Spore Lv 6,  Scatter Spore Lv 4,  High-speed Movement Lv 6
 * A mushroom that was monsterified due to the presence of magical energy. Ryoma accidentally produced 70-80 during his first attempt at growing mushrooms, after using fertilizer produced by the scavenger slime, and watering them using water magic.  Apparently they are very rare in the wild and 1 mushroom sells for ~100,000 suits.  They have medicinal effects when eaten or used in medicine.  Look like whichever mushrooms they were produced from, in addition to having sharp-looking nails and protruded feet.

Etymology

 * The name Ryoma means "dragon" (竜) (ryo) and "horse" (馬) (ma).
 * Ryoma's surname Takebayashi means "bamboo" (竹) (take) and "forest" (林) (hayashi/bayashi).

Trivia

 * The only time he's ever been upset about his life was upon learning he died in an incredibly lame way after surviving:
 * His father's abuse
 * His drunk boss throwing beer bottles at his head
 * Being overworked.
 * It's unknown how his superiors got away with making him work every day of the week; certainly the human resource department should have caught on.
 * On Earth, Ryoma had experienced harsh living conditions and endured endless training from his father from a young age.
 * Ryoma states that he has pulled carriages while running lined up with a horse.
 * Ryoma hunted pigeons in the park to survive.
 * Ryoma's father was often violent and beat him up.
 * Ryoma's parents passed away from different deaths:
 * His father died due to smithing.
 * His mother died from overworking.
 * In the novel and manga Ryoma doesn't rely on help from others when he deems it unnecessary and instead does it all himself. Like when he was building his store he worked on it alone for 10 days, only relying on Serge to supply the materials to him.
 * The God of Fishing and Ports, Serelipta, manipulated Ryoma's soul to find out the truth as to why the Earth God gave Ryoma so many God Trials in his past life. Manipulation of a living soul is something very close to a Taboo for Gods due to the fact that souls that have been "fiddled with" by the gods can never enter the cycle of Reincarnation.
 * The reason Ryoma's life on Earth sucked so much was because the God of Earth treated him like a Video Game Character; intending to make him crack under the pressure and become a serial killer. However, all God succeeded in was making Ryoma emotionally numb after losing his mother. Annoyed, God gave him a lame death; to start over with a different patsy.
 * Kufo, Gain and Lulutina noted said God "rewarded" Ryoma with gifts for clearing his psychotic trials. Considering Ryoma was given a sturdy and strong body, along with becoming emotionally numb, it's no real surprise that the Earth God was slowly physically and mentally getting Ryoma ready to be a killer; however, he did not count on Ryoma's innate kindness persevering and keeping him numb and just one step from wishing he was dead/being suicidal.