Ryuchell

Ryuchell — born Ryūji Higa in Ginowan, Okinawa, in 1995 — was easy to mistake for a novelty when he first surfaced out of Harajuku in the mid-2010s. Bright clothes, bright voice, an aesthetic that flatly refused to sit on one side of the gender line. It took me a while to see what was actually happening there: that wasn't decoration, it was nerve. He became a central figure in Japan's genderless fashion scene, worked as a model, singer and television personality, ran his own company as its representative director, and spoke publicly for LGBTQ rights in a country where doing so still costs something. He did it smiling, which made it look effortless, which it plainly was not. He died in July 2023, aged 27. What he demonstrated — that you are allowed to exist exactly as you are — outlived him, and I don't think it's going to fade.

Name (English)

Ryuchell

Name (Japanese)

ryuchell

Born

September 29, 1995 – July 12, 2023

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Boar

Origin

Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

Height

172 cm

Occupation

model / representative director / tarento / LGBTQ rights activist / singer

High school

Okinawa Prefectural Kitanakagusuku High School

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://starray-p.com/artist/ryucheru
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/ryuzi33world929/
• Xhttps://x.com/RYUZi33WORLD929
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuchell

Tags

• Okinawa Prefecture
• model
• representative director
• tarento

Last updated

2026-07-26

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.