Ryouga's scruffy appearance is the first thing people notice about him, though his real defining trait is something far more problematic: he has absolutely no sense of direction. Like his parents and basically his entire family, he's cursed with an inability to navigate that goes beyond just being bad with maps. He takes directions literally no matter where they lead, can't draw a legible map to save his life, and once ran the wrong way at the start of a three-legged race. Whether it's a neurological thing, a family curse, or some combination, nobody really knows—but it's genuinely severe.
The worst part is how this pairs with his other curse. In the anime, Ryouga can cover insane distances on foot in almost no time, though how he manages it remains a mystery. Combined with his directional blindness, he ends up having zero idea where he actually is at any given moment. He once tried heading to Hokkaido and somehow wound up in Hong Kong instead. At least he carries a backpack stocked with survival gear. The manga treats this ability as less supernatural and more just comedically timed, though even there he's managed to overshoot Tokyo by 500 miles in a single day or two.
Because of these two problems, Ryouga spends most of his time wandering alone in the wilderness, miserable and isolated. Rain makes it worse—he transforms into a helpless pig, leaving him vulnerable to predators or hungry humans. He's emotionally fragile and prone to depression, though he's also surprisingly loyal and grateful when someone shows him kindness. Around women especially, he's shy and polite, which makes him an easy target for teasing. Ranma in particular loves exploiting the fact that Ryouga can't see through even the most obvious disguises if they're worn by female Ranma, using it to spy on his training, get a laugh, or sabotage his dates with Akane.
His family home sits near Mount Fuji and technically belongs to him, but he rarely manages to find it given the family curse. His dog Shirokuro and her puppies live there and have no trouble navigating, and the dog recognizes Ryouga whether he's human or pig-form. Ranma apparently helped him get home a few times when they went to high school together, though that didn't exactly fix the underlying problem.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
