This article is about the protagonist of the novel, for the film character, see Kazuyuki Asakawa (Ringu).
Kazuyuki Asakawa (浅川 和行 Asakawa Kazuyuki) is the main protagonist of Ring (novel). He is married to Shizu Asakawa and they have a one-year-old daughter named Yoko. His best friend is Ryuji Takayama, an alleged rapist, After his wife's niece Tomoko dies and he comes across another boy who died on the same day on his motorbike, Asakawa tries to find out why which then links him to the cursed videotape. After watching it, he is left with just seven days to figure out how to break the curse.
History[]
Ring[]
He is married to Shizu Asakawa and they have a one-year-old daughter named Yoko. His best friend is Ryuji Takayama, an alleged rapist. After his wife's niece Tomoko dies and he comes across another boy who died on the same day on his motorbike, Asakawa tries to find out why which then links him to the cursed videotape. After watching it, he is left with just seven days to figure out how to break the curse. While Kazuyuki manages to narrowly escape the curse by showing Ryuji with a copy of the video tape, his daughter and wife are not, and they are both killed before they manage to pass the video to others.
Spiral[]
In Spiral, his daughter and wife do not despite having done the same, as the virus which causes the curse mutated when Kazuyuki copied the tape for Ryuji. In his panic, Kazuyuki experiences a car accident which leaves him catatonic. Ando attempts to interview him about the virus, but he remains mute. Several weeks later, Kazuyuki passes away in his sleep. It is later revealed that the virus spared Kazuyuki because he unwittingly helped it spread; Kazuyuki's journal chronicling his investigation on Sadako is printed by Junichi into a book published nationally.
Other Incarnations[]
Asakawa is better known in the female guise of Reiko Asakawa in the 1998 film adaptation of Suzuki's book of the same name, played by Nanako Matsushima. The reason for the change was because the film makers felt a female character would be more appealing at the box-office for the more maternal job of going to great lengths to protect her son. It also enabled a more intimate relationship between Asakawa and Takayama. Apart from being a different sex, Reiko differs from Kazuyuki because:
- Rather than being married, she is divorced.
- Ryuji is no longer her best friend but her ex-husband and father of her child.
- Rather than having a one-year-old daughter, she has a seven-year-old son, Yoichi.
- Time of viewing the film has changed.
- Tomoko is her niece by blood, rather than by marriage.
Other versions of Kazuyuki Asakawa are two other female characters, Rachel Keller from The Ring and Sun-joo from The Ring Virus. These two characters are more adaptions of Reiko Asakawa, than Kazuyuki Asakawa.
- Rachel Keller, in the 2002 American remake of the 1998 Japanese film, a single mother with a son.
- Sun-joo Hong, in the 1999 South Korean remake of the 1998 Japanese film, a single mother with a daughter.
Trivia[]
- In Ring: The Final Chapter, Kazuyuki has a son named Yoichi.
- Kazuyuki's counterpart was Reiko in the 1998 film adaption.
- It is Hideo Nakata's idea to change the gender of the protagonist in the novel.
- Asakawa is the first protagonist to ever appeared in The Ring.