Kazuyuki Asakawa

Kazuyuki Asakawa (浅川 和行, Asakawa Kazuyuki) is the lead character in Koji Suzuki's novel Ring, published in 1991. He is married to Shizuka Asakawa and they have a one-year-old daughter named Yoko. His best friend is Ryuji Takayama, a college professor and 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 a cursed videotape and the malevolent ghost Sadako Yamamura. After watching it, he is left with seven days to figure out how to break the curse.

Two onscreen adaptions of the male character of Kazuyuki exist. In the initial 1995 television film, the onscreen character of Asakawa is largely similar to the character in the book bearing only minor differences such having no children but his Shizuka being three months pregnant instead. He is played by Katsunori Takahashi.

In the 1998 television series Asakawa (played by Toshirō Yanagiba) is different here because:

Asakawa was reimagined as a woman named Reiko Asakawa, played by Nanako Matsushima, in the 1998 film adaptation of Suzuki's book. The filmmakers 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:

Other versions of Kazuyuki Asakawa are two other female characters, Rachel Keller from The Ring and Sun-joo from The Ring Virus.

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