Kazuyuki Asakawa

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Kazuyuki Asakawa is a fictional character and the lead character in Koji Suzuki's novel Ring, published in 1991. 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.

[edit] 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.