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Renko Usami
ɯsamʲi ɽeŋko (♫) Renko Usami | |
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 Renko Usami as depicted on the cover of Taboo Japan Disentanglement
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| Species |
Human (native to the outside world) |
| Abilities |
Telling time by looking at the stars and determining location by looking at the Moon (a living GPS). |
| Occupation |
University Student (Super unified physics major) |
| Location | |
Appearances | |
| Print Works | |
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| Music CDs | |
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"Let's wake up! Dreams are things to be made into reality.
The world of dreams can be made into reality!"
— Renko Usami (Changeability of Strange Dream)
Renko Usami (宇佐見 蓮子 Usami Renko) is a university student in the near future of the outside world in Kyoto who forms the "Hifuu Club" along with her close friend Maribel Hearn. She has no relation to Gensokyo, but is aware of it through Maribel talking about her visits to it in her dreams.
General Information
Personality
Renko is generally portrayed as being a confident person with an adventurous and daring personality. Being a physics major, she also tends to view things from a more objective point of view.
Her personality makes her a great support for Maribel. For example, the club's activities are usually arranged by her such as their trip to Rendaino in Ghostly Field Club as well as to the "Old Adam" bar in Dateless Bar "Old Adam".[1][2] Her more objective view on things also allows her to help Maribel differentiate between reality and fantasy.[3] However, this does not stop Renko from believing in anything that Maribel says.[4]
Abilities
- Telling time by the stars and determining location by the Moon
Renko is able to tell time by looking at the stars and determine location by looking at the Moon. Her ability is shown to work even when looking at a snapshot of the stars and Moon. She was able to determine the location of a photo of an entrance to the Netherworld by simply looking at the Moon and stars pictured.[5]
However, her ability to tell time by looking at the stars is limited to Japanese Standard Time (JST).[6] If she wanted to know the time in another timezone, she would have to do the necessary calculation.
Occupation
She is a university student majoring in "super unified physics"[7] at an unknown university in Kyoto. Because of her major, she is able to rationalize the club's discoveries more scientifically. For example, she theorizes that the other worlds that Maribel sees are brane worlds.[8]
Character Design
Name
Her full name is Renko Usami (宇佐見 蓮子), where both the given name and surname are actual names in Japanese. The kanji for Renko (蓮子) literally means "lotus child" respectively; the -ko is a common suffix in Japanese that's used in female names.
Design
Renko usually wears a black hat with a bow, white blouse, and a brown dress. In Magical Astronomy, Trojan Green Asteroid, and Rainbow-Colored Septentrion, she is also wearing a black shawl. She also has brown hair and often carries a book with her.
Appearances
- Ghostly Field Club
- Main article: Ghostly Field Club Story
Using a photograph of the Netherworld and Renko's ability to determine location from the Moon, Merry and Renko attempt to find the entrance to the Netherworld in a ghostly field.
Merry is talking with Renko about how she is visiting a strange world in her dreams. It starts out nicely but begins to become nightmarish as Merry is attacked by youkai. Merry has trouble figuring out what is reality and what is just a dream, and to further complicate the issue, she presents Renko with some of the items she had obtained in her dreams. Renko realizes the truth, and in the end must decide on which will be Merry's reality.
- Retrospective 53 minutes
- Main article: Retrospective 53 Minutes Story
In Retrospective 53 minutes, Merry and Renko were on a train to Tokyo. They were looking at a simulated kaleido screen of the outside and discussing the trip, the view, and the nature of objectivity and subjectivity related to it. Renko commented on her, saying "You might be as carefree as the Tōhoku people though". The trip lasts 53 minutes.
- Magical Astronomy
- Main article: Magical Astronomy Story
The university campus is abuzz with news of public tours to the Moon. Merry and Renko talk about the world on the Moon hidden from humans and eagerly try to plan their own trip to there. Merry gets a special idea.
- Trojan Green Asteroid
- Main article: Trojan Green Asteroid Story
Maribel and Renko discuss the lost micro-habitat space station TORIFUNE, Merry claiming that she has seen inside it and everything is still alive. Since the station contains a shrine to Ame-no-Torifune, they travel to another such shrine and use Maribel's ability to transport themselves there through their dreams. They discover that the interior has become a dense jungle, and are attacked by a chimera. Maribel wakes up with a cut on her arm and is sent to hospital.
- Neo-traditionalism of Japan
- Main article: Neo-traditionalism of Japan Story
While in hospital, Maribel is diagnosed with sleepwalking and hallucinations; believing this to be a previously unknown virus, the doctors send her to the mountains for isolation treatment. By the time she's released her powers have grown stronger and she now sees visions while awake. Merry discusses Hell with Renko, but doesn't tell her that she physically travelled to Hell while in isolation. Renko tells Merry that while she was in isolation the news has been talking about discoveries of stone tools more than 25 million years old, though they were dismissed as a hoax.
Merry believes otherwise, and presents one she found herself. Merry shows Renko a vision of the underground realm where she found it, and Renko recognises the Ame-no-Sakahoko as being there. Merry calms down, no longer believing the place she saw to be Hell but the world of the gods. The two decide to find more such "Izanagi Objects" that lie unrecognised across Japan.
- Dr. Latency's Freak Report
- Main article: Dr. Latency's Freak Report Story
At Maribel's suggestion, the duo is planning on self-publishing a book, in which they would relate the stories of the mysterious worlds they had seen. Under the pen name of "Dr. Latency", Maribel is dictating to Renko her parts of the book, including a summary of the strange places she saw as well as her theories in her attempt to rationalize what was defying the common sense of the world.
- Dateless Bar "Old Adam"
- Main article: Dateless Bar "Old Adam" Story
Renko invites Maribel to the "Old Adam" bar, a special place where old-style alcohol is being served and said to be a gathering spot for those who can see illusions. Almost everyone there seems to have read the Swallowstone Naturalis Historia, the self-published fanzine Maribel and Renko made before, and believe its content entirely. The duo came here to hear the stories of the locals, hoping to find valuable information or even people that may have special abilities like them.
- Taboo Japan Disentanglement
- Main article: Taboo Japan Disentanglement
Relationships
- Maribel Hearn
Renko and Maribel Hearn are the only members of the Hifuu Club and both are fellow students at a university. The two are very good friends, working together to seek out other worlds, travelling by train together to Renko's home-town, discussing going to the Moon together, and Maribel confiding to Renko about her travels to another world in her dreams.
- Sumireko Usami
Because Sumireko Usami shares Renko's surname, has a similar appearance, and as she created the Hifuu Club that Renko is part of, there is likely some sort of relation between the two. However, the specifics of this connection is as yet unknown.
Gallery
Covers
Renko on the cover of Ghostly Field Club
Renko on CD of Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey
Additional Information
- Renko's major "super unified physics" is a fictional major that presumably deals in the study of physics where a theory of everything has been found. It appears that this was achieved sucessfully through string theory as Merry mentions Renko studying strings.[7]
- Renko is one of the only characters known to live outside of Gensokyo. As such, she has never actually met any of the other characters except Maribel Hearn, who also lives outside Gensokyo. Yuyuko Saigyouji has encountered the Hifuu Club while they were visiting a power spot in the outside world, but Renko did not seem able to see her.[9]
Fandom
Official Sources
- 2003/12/30 Ghostly Field Club
- 2004/12/30 Changeability of Strange Dream
- 2006/05/21 Retrospective 53 minutes
- 2006/08/13 Magical Astronomy
- 2011/05/08 Unknown Flower, Mesmerizing Journey
- 2012/04/27 Symposium of Post-mysticism - Part 2
- 2012/04/30 Trojan Green Asteroid
- 2012/08/11 Neo-traditionalism of Japan
- 2016/05/08 Dr. Latency's Freak Report
- 2016/08/13 Dateless Bar "Old Adam"
- 2021/12/31 Rainbow-Colored Septentrion
References
- ↑ Ghostly Field Club - "Girls' Hifuu Club" (Track 02)
- ↑ Dateless Bar "Old Adam" - "The Darkness Brought in by Swallowstone Naturalis Historia" (Track 02). Maribel Hearn:"So, Renko, what did you bring me all the way to this creepy bar to see? That old guy?"
Renko Usami: "That was a coincidence. But this will be perfect for an extracurricular Sealing Club activity!" - ↑ Changeability of Strange Dream "Mystic Maple ~ Eternal Dream" (Track 11)
- ↑ Ghostly Field Club - "Flower of Past Days ~ Fairy of Flower" (Track 08)
- ↑ Ghostly Field Club - "Youkai Bird of the Moon, Illusion of the Bakeneko" (Track 07)
- ↑ Magical Astronomy - "Greenwich in the Sky" (Track 02)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Changeability of Strange Dream - "Retribution for the Eternal Night ~ Imperishable Night" (Track 06)
- ↑ Dr. Latency's Freak Report - "The Taboo Membrane Wall" (Track 08). "Perhaps Merry is seeing one of those brane worlds."
- ↑ Symposium of Post-mysticism - Part 2 (Drawing)
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