Riku is a large white dog who travels alongside Shizu and is best known for his constant smile. He's a talking dog, though this ability is inconsistently portrayed depending on the version. In the anime, he's only ever actually shown speaking to Hermes—when Kino hears about it secondhand, she doesn't believe Riku can talk at all. The original Japanese anime also has him speak to Shizu, but the English dub changes these moments to just barks and whimpers. In the light novels, he's less secretive about it and converses with both Kino and Hermes without issue.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
