Ryuugamine Mikado

Series: Durarara!!
Mikado Ryugamine (竜ヶ峰帝人)
Birthday: March 21
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 50 kg
Blood Type: O
Hobby: Net Surfing
Likes: Living a different life, Sonohara Anri
Dislikes: Living a normal life
Handle: Tanaka Taro (田中太郎)
Mikado is a childhood friend of Masaomi Kida and the primary male protagonist of the series. He is later revealed to be the creator of the Dollars.

Mikado is a polite, soft spoken boy, who at times can be quite childish and naive. This is likely a result of his small town upbringing; as he moves to Ikebukuro he is amazed and overwhelmed by the sheer size and energy of the city, and thus himself feels small and insignificant. He was bored of the average life he previously led, and moved to Tokyo in search of adventure. To he himself, he feels that his name (which translates as "Emperor of the Dragon Peak") sounds odd and childish, but it seems that some people think it is special or just okay, like Walker and Erika.
Despite his personality, he is shown to have a pretty strong will, and he does have moments where he speaks his mind, which is one of the reasons Masaomi admires him.

As he often acts like a child, Masaomi feels he has to stay around Mikado and help him out, since he would not be able to manage on his own. While Mikado envied Masaomi for his exciting life (for most of the series he is unaware of Masaomi's affiliation with the Yellow Scarves), Masaomi ironically envies Mikado's innocence and his ability to lead a quiet, happy life.

As the series progresses, Mikado gradually becomes more and more assertive, and becomes able to accept the chaos that life throws at him without trying to run away.

As shown in the light novels (and to a lesser extent, in the manga as well) Mikado has a much darker side to his personality. While he doesn't show it fully until the end of Volume 6, this darker half of Mikado was hinted at in various events throughout the light novels. The first example being the confrontation with Namie where Mikado voices his utter disgust with Namie in his mind while still keeping his timid personality on the outside. He also states that, no matter what the situation or who is involved, whatever action or decision MIkado makes must also benefit himself in some way (in other words, self preservation and self satisfaction trump all). This, by extension, means that almost every aspect about Mikado's life wether it be friends, family, or even the Dollars, are merely tools he uses to keep his life more interesting.

While in this mindset, Mikado is much more ruthless and manipulative than he appears to be and is very capable at using intimidation to reach his goals. While it may initially seem like Mikado has a split personality, it is theorized by Aoba that the colder version of Mikado is his real personality while his timid side is the fake one.

Mikado grew up in the small town of Saitama, and led an unexciting life that he grew bored with. People often commented that his name sounds like that of a manga character, and he wished that his life was more like a manga, with more unusual and exciting events. When he met his childhood friend, Masaomi Kida online, Masaomi would always tell him stories about the excitement of his life in the big city. Eventually, when Masaomi decided he would be going to Raira Academy in Ikebukuro and invited Mikado to go with him, Mikado happily accepted, hoping to find a more exciting life.

It is also known that he created the online group the Dollars as a middle schooler. He created the group with some of his friends as a joke, but shortly after they created the group, the group began to grow at an alarming rate, with people joining whom none of the creators had sent invitations to. This was the work of Izaya Orihara. The creators, unaware of this, were afraid of the group which was spiralling out of control, and all of the creators except Mikado left the group, leaving him as the only remaining creator and the sole leader.
Mikado then became class representive along with Anri Sonohara. He also learned about Mika Harima, Sonohara's missing friend.

Mikado regularly joined a chatroom with the handle "Taro Tanaka," where he chatted with "Kanra" and "Setton," who in real life were Izaya Orihara and Celty Sturluson, respectively. It was mostly from Kanra that he learned about the gangs and incidents in Ikebukuro.

End