Name: Reiji Ozaki
Age: 24
Appearance:Not pictured are a number of piercings and holes were piercings used to be. There really is no rhyme or reason to their perpetual rotation, but his face is never too gaudy with the stuff. Also, a life of poor decision making skills has left him with several scars marring his body, ranging from small and forgettable, to those that tell a story on their own.
Height: 5’9”
Weight: 165 lbs
Likes: - Music – the faster and heavier it is, the better
- Nighttime – the only time of day that the guy feels is worth being up for
- Cigarettes – although he quit them a while ago, he can often still be found with one in his mouth out of sheer force of habit
- Spicy food – one of the few flavors his tongue is still capable of fully perceiving
- Coffee – brew it strong and keep it black and he’ll be a happy camper
- Adrenaline – he’s the guy to go to when you need something stupidly dangerous done
- Whiskey – because most other alcohol just doesn’t get him where he’s going as enjoyably
- Backbone – nothing will get you in his good graces faster than standing up to him
- Serendipity – chance meetings with interesting people is what gets him up in the mornings evenings
Dislikes:- Dishonesty – he finds people that lie, whether to others or to themselves, to be a waste of time
- Excessive whining – why waste breath complaining about something when you can spend that energy fixing the problem?
- Arrogance – nothing gets under his skin quite like a person that needs to be knocked down a peg
- Euphemisms/polite language – just say what you mean dammit
- Sedentariness – the guy will go stir-crazy after sitting still for about a minute and a half (on a good day)
- Cars – they take the fun out of feeling the city around you
- Cats – one whiff of their dander is enough to send him into an apocalyptic sneezing fit
- Formal attire – pigs will fly before he will get in a stuffy penguin suit without a fight
- Rules/authority – merely on principle, but he is capable of conforming when absolutely, positively necessary
Party Trick: The guy is scary good when it comes to making random sound effects
Profession: Never one to be held down by any one job for long, Reiji is an eternal freelancer that is always on the lookout for work to help make ends meet. From bartending to babysitting (happens more often than you would think), his vast skillset makes him the perfect guy for whatever odd job that comes his way.
Bio/Personality: Reiji’s life has always been a loud one. Having been born in big city to middle class parents and with two brothers, one older and one younger, you would think that the kid would have at least started out shy. In that regard, you would be dead wrong, as he has quite literally been kicking and screaming for the better part of 24 years now. The guy was always the loudest and most energetic in his class, which are two traits that can still be seen in him all too prominently to this day. Friends certainly didn’t come easy to the rambunctious tot, especially since he has always been the type that isn’t afraid to speak his mind about others. But the few that he did manage to make found a steadfastly loyal friend.
And it was one of those friends, Yuusuke Hijikata, that got him into music. All throughout his academic career, Reiji was a painfully average student due to the amount of focus and patience it took to succeed. But when he strummed his first chord on a guitar, the little guy was hooked for life. Traditional training quickly proved to be fruitless, as his attention span was never all that forgiving, but he took what he did learn and had a surprising amount of success teaching himself how to play. In fact, the kid was always a quick learner, he just never had the head for too much abstract thinking. Ask him to rewire a circuit board? No problem, just give him the basics and a few days and he’ll get it done. But throw him a complex math problem that is nothing but numbers and letters? Forget about it, life is just too damn short to waste on that junk.
It wasn’t until he was in high school that Yuusuke asked him to start a band. To this day, Reiji remembers the moment all too clearly. Their little band was his first taste of life outside of life outside of the norms of what society expected of him. And the little brat couldn’t get enough of it. He experienced freedom first hand, with the only expectations he had to answer to were from his fans that wanted to see him kick ass on the guitar. For years, Reiji had been growing more and more distant with his parents, as they did not approve of him dying his hair blood red or his taste in friends, but it was when his grades started to suffer because of how invested he was with his music that they truly grew apart. At the time, the little monster thought it was convenient when they started nagging him less about grades and his future, but in time he would realize that they had truly started to give up on him.
It wouldn’t stop him though. As his band saw more success, Reiji continued to develop his taste for recklessness. Of all the poor decisions and bad habits he picked up, smoking would prove to be the hardest one to give up by far. But if given the choice, he wouldn’t change anything, as he believes that for better or worse, everything he went through shaped him into the jack ass that he is. Needless to say, it was a miracle that the schmuck was able to graduate from high school at all, but the end of his formal education would also mark the end of his friends’ no name band. Most of the members decided that it was time to grow up and get real jobs. The thought of going to college or settling down sickened Reiji to no end.
Once again, Yuusuke, who at this point was more of a brother to Reiji than his two siblings, offered him a way out. Like him, Yuusuke couldn’t stand the idea of losing the punk attitude that he had spent so much time cultivating, so the two of them set off to make a band together. The start was unbelievably rocky, but they were determined and would manage to put together a group of idiots with just enough talent to get by. Work however was very sink or swim, which was what first caused Reiji to start picking up odd jobs, learning anything he could about just about everything. By the time he was 20, the delinquent lived in a one room apartment with three other guys and barely had enough money to buy his daily pack of cigarettes. And he couldn’t have been happier.
By 22, Reiji had embraced the punk lifestyle fully. His voice had become slightly scraggly from smoking and he had a notorious hair trigger temper. He had little patience and even less respect for authority, but was generally kept in check by Yuusuke, who had always been the more levelheaded one of the two. Their band had drawn a rather substantial following and for the first time things seemed to have been looking up for the scamp. But unfortunately that would also come to an end. The band broke up not even a month after his 22nd birthday when Yuusuke died. Of the few things that he remembers of the time, his funeral was the last time Reiji ever lit a cigarette.
The exact circumstances of the event aren’t clear, but if you value your wellbeing it is not a subject you bring up around Reiji. The death of his brother cast a long shadow over him, one so long that it would take him the better portion of two years to escape from fully. But when he emerged, he knew that the only way to renounce the awful excuse of a human being he had been for the past few years was to get a fresh start. Shine City had always been home to one of their favorite venues, so the decision to move there came easily to him.
But with no band, hardly any savings, and a rather lackluster personality, Reiji is finding himself once again marketing himself off doing odd jobs. He still has a fiery temper and general lack of respect for authority, but he has been tempered with the understanding that life is too precious to be wasted. The result is a loud, boisterous individual that is still reckless, but also isn’t afraid to let people know what they truly mean to him. There are a great many faults to be found in his uncouth disposition, but those that are able to see past it might just find a guy capable of doing some rather surprising things.
