Rensa

Rensa
Personal Info
Age	n/a
Gender	Female in appearance
Professional Status
Classification	Cyborg

Rensa (恋査, Rensa^?) is the name given to the cyborg which was created for the emergency event when all Level 5 Espers would rebel against Academy City, in which case she would suppress them by using their abilities or copying other Espers' abilities.

Being only cyborg body, small parts of a person's brain can be inserteed into the cyborg in order for them to "pilot" it. There are 40 recorded inviduals who where willing to have their brains reduced to a very small portion in order to control Rensa in turns. Only #28 and #29 amongst them were shown in action.

Appearance

Rensa wears nurse clothing, which takes people by surprise by not looking intimidating.

Personality

Rensa's personality is hard to truly determinate, as it depends on which "person" is taking control of Rensa at any given time. For example, #28 was rather robotic in her mannerisms, talking about the "targets" and the "objectives" while being rather submissive. However, #29 was much more aggressive in using Rensa and seemed to show a sadistic side in the form of taunting her enemies to take pleasure in their despair. #28 also had the odd habbit of assigning odd nick names to people and places such as: I am fat because of a fried chicken conspiracy-chan, Clean-Freak Princess for patients at the hospital and Sticky Freezer for the Critical Pathogen Specimen Freezer.

Abilities

Rensa is a one of a kind cyborg that was designed specifically as a countermeasure in case the Level 5 Espers would turn against Academy City. She is capable of copying the abilities of any Esper by using a flower-like device that protudes from her back with "knitting needle"-like device within the flower. These knitting needles would then proceed to calculate and imitate the values of different Esper powers allowing her to be capable of using the abilities of the #1 up to #6 Level 5 Espers and of any other Esper in a 200 meter radius from her. Rensa describes her ability as altering the wiring of her body similar to pulling the strings of a puppet, therefore being able to reproduce the characteristics of multiple people and switch between multiple abilities.

While incredibly powerful, her abilities have some limitations. For example, she cannot use two copied abilities at the same time, meaning she can only use one ability at a time and must switch her patterns to copy another ability. Another limitation is that her knitting needles cannot copy powers that are not comprehended, for example the abilities of Sogiita Gunha, because his powers have been not completely understood. Furthermore, when Rensa tried to copy the Imagine Breaker, she was briefly successful on imitating its power, however when trying to comprehend its mysterious nature, Rensa's arm began to swell up, while suffering violent convulsions and a breakdown.

Also, since her knitting needles construct an output with the values of a certain Esper, if said Esper dies, then Rensa loses the ability of the Esper in question permanently. Because of Rensa's complex mechanisms, her construction alone required a massive amount of assets from Academy City to build her, furthermore the costs of maintaining Rensa are also known to be large, which are the main reasons why Rensa cannot be mass-produced.

Gallery

According to Kiyotaka Haimura, the design for Rensa #28 did not need individuality for story purposes, as such he designed her as such. The design for Rensa #29 receives a distinction separate from its predecessor. According to Haimura, he designed her with the basic image of Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist fame in mind. Despite having the same proportions, Rensa #29 is a lot more boyish.

Finally, continuing with the plant motif that is apparent in some of Haimura's art such as Aleister Crowley's Blasting Rod, he had designed Rensa's AIM reception design with the thought of combining a cosmos flower and a parabolic antenna.

Character Art Designs

Rensa #028 character art design by Kiyotaka Haimura.

Rensa #029 character art design.

Rensa's AIM Receptor concept art.