Tokyo ESP

Tokyo ESP (東京ESP) is a Japanese manga series by Hajime Segawa. It began serialization in the April 2010 issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace magazine. It follows a high school girl named Rinka Urushiba, who lives with her father in poor conditions, leading her to work part-time. Her life changes when she gains the ability to use extrasensory perception (ESP). An anime television series adaptation^[1] began airing July 2014.^[2]

Plot

Tokyo ESP begins with Rinka Urushiba as a fairly normal high school girl, though she is a bit poor and her only family is her father. This forces her to work as a waitress after high school to raise money for them to secure rent and food. One day, she sees a penguin and some glowing fish swimming through the sky. Rinka might have thought it was a hallucination if there had not been another witness with her, a boy from her school with a strangely scratched-up face. Contact with a fish causes her to pass out, and when she awakens, she has developed the power to move through inanimate objects such as the floor of her apartment. She meets a fellow high school student named Kyotaro Azuma, who has the ability to teleport. The two of them use their ESP powers to take on individuals who have decided to use them for evil. However, there is an organization that plans for a bigger scheme to secure utopia with their ranks consisting of strong ESP fighters and users.

Characters

Main characters

From left to right: Rinka Urushiba, Peggi (In Rinka's arms), Rindō Urushiba, Kobushi Kuroi, Murasaki Edoyama and Kyōtarō Azuma.

Rinka Urushiba (漆葉 リンカ, Urushiba Rinka)

Voiced by: Ibuki Kido

The main protagonist of the first arc. A high school girl with a strong sense of justice (as a direct result of her father, a former cop, teaching her his ways), she gains the power to phase through inanimate objects at the start of the series. She's called "White Girl" by the media because when using her powers, her hair turns pure white (anime version only).

Kyōtarō Azuma (東 京太郎, Azuma Kyōtarō)

Voiced by: Keisuke Koumoto

Second protagonist of the first arc. He attends to the same high school of Rinka, and is Rinka's friend. Azuma has the ability of teleporting from one place to another. While hiding his identity as a hero, he uses a crow mask and a tuxedo and calls himself "Crow Head".

Ren Jōmyaku (条幕 蓮, Jōmyaku Ren)

The main protagonist of the second arc. Her ESP power can form blocks of ice that can be placed on any kind of material. She is the target of terrorists because of her mysterious 'lock space' power.

Zeus (Zeusu)

Second protagonist of the second arc. He works for the ESP Police Force and is ordered to protect Ren. His ESP is metalbending, though the accruate of it is unknown as he is able to "transform" machinery and vehicles into to "stuff" (ex: he turned a police car into a robot).

Rindō Urushiba (漆葉 竜胆, Urushiba Rindō)

Voiced by: Tetsu Inada

Rinka's dad. He gains the power of creating a magnetic field around him attracting and repelling metallic objects. A former police officer who was forced to retire for being unable to look the other way at the corruption of his department, he has been disemployed ever since.

Kobushi Kuroi "Black Fist" (黒井 小節, Kuroi Kobushi)

Voiced by: Mai Aizawa

A young thief, having the invisibility ability. She is known to announce her misdeeds in advance. She is a very good boxer and loves fighting policemen mixing her invisibility ability and her boxing skill. She has a great ego and hates losing a fight. After being saved by Rindō, she develops a crush on him, calling him her "Prince" and starts staying with Rinka, much to her dismay.

Murasaki Edoyama (江戸山 紫, Edoyama Murasaki)

Voiced by: Azusa Tadokoro

The daughter of a Yakuza boss, she gained psychometry (the ability to see an object's past by touching it) from a glowing fish. If this power is used on a weapon, the skills its previous owner had are temporarily passed to Murasaki, but because of her low stamina, she can't use them for too long.

Ayumu Oozora (大空 歩, Oozora Ayumu)

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata

A son of one of the most outspoken people against Espers and everything they stand for. He has the power of Precognition, but he can only see two seconds into the future. He is a middle school student with aspirations to be a member of Congress, like his mother. He always gets upset when someone calls his hairstyle an afro.

Pandaemon Youdani (養谷 藩田衛門, Youdani Pandaemon)

Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue

A martial arts master who trained much of the Tokyo Police Force, including Rinka's father. He is constantly dressed in a panda suit and is an Esper himself, with the power of clairvoyance.

Peggi (ペギー, Pegī)

Voiced by: Kaoru Mizuhara

A mysterious penguin with the ability to fly. It's also known as "The Collector" and has the power to remove and eat other people's ESP abilities.

Parrot (オウム, Ōmu)

Voiced by: Minori Chihara

A pelican that Azuma meets when he is left on a deserted island and it helps him escape. It can communicate to him because it gained powers of Telepathy from the glowing fish. He later joins the heroes in their crime fighting. Its telepathy is so strong it can nullify the Professor's illusions.

Antagonists

The Professor/Hokusai Azuma (教授/東 北斎, Kyōju/Azuma Hokusai)

Voiced by: Yoshihisa Kawahara

Kyōtarō's adoptive and Minami's father, who leads the group that is letting the glowing fish roam free. His ESP powers allow him to create all types of illusions. He has a burn scar on the left side of his face that he keeps hidden behind an illusion. The murder of his wife and colleagues at the hands of someone from the Japanese government made him see the world as hopeless, desiring to change it. After releasing thousands of Glowing Fish into Tokyo, he was seemly killed by The Siblings; however, it was revealed that he was alive but was taken hostage instead.

Minami Azuma (東 美奈実, Azuma Minami)

Voiced by: Sachika Misawa

Azuma's adoptive sister who follows The Professor, and she's also capable of teleporting. She fights wielding 2 katanas. Despite being ruthless while fighting, she still deeply cares for Kyōtarō and desires to defeat Rinka.

Kozuki Kuroi (黒井 弧月, Kuroi Kozuki)

Voiced by: Hiromi Konno

Kobushi's younger sister and the other Black Fist. She has a teleportation ability as well, but she can only teleport other people and things, not herself, just by touching them. She desires the title of "Black Fist" in the Kuroi family, and to do that she must steal something valuable enough to please their grandmother. As such, she joins the Professor for her own reasons.

Lin Lianjie

Voiced by: Yuki Matsuoka

A chinese girl recruited by the Professor who calls herself "The Evil Ghost of the Woods". Besides her martial arts, her ESP is the power of repulsion (the opposite of Rindō's). She likes to make attacks directed at the eyes.

Others

Nabeshima (鍋島, Nabeshima)

Voiced by: Yoshito Yasuhara

A police Inspector and Rindō's former co-worker. He, along with the other cops, also received martial arts training from Master Youdani.

Reia Oozora

Voiced by: Fuyuka Oura

Ayumu's mother who is a member of Congress. She believed all espers were criminals, until she was saved by her son and started to change the way of seeing them.

Production

Plans for Tokyo ESP started when Segawa was still doing his Ga-Rei manga, discussing ideas with his then editor and supervisor when the latter suggested that his next work should be based on superpowers.^[3] Segawa suggested that his protagonist should be based from someone in the Matrix series with the comical ability to use his fart as a weapon with the addition of drama before the supervisor told him to take out the farting ability.^[3] Segawa decided to go with the female lead like he did with the Ga-Rei manga series.^[4] During brainstorming, Segawa pitched an idea to his staff that the female could have fearsome superpowers due to the concern that the female lead will not be prominently known if a male character helps her out, which was met with some opposition from his supervisor again.^[4]

Media

Manga

Tokyo ESP is written and illustrated by Hajime Segawa. It began serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace magazine with the April 2010 issue.^[5][6][7] The first tankōbon volumes was released on July 26, 2010, and eleven volumes have been released as of July 26, 2014.

Volume list

Anime

The opening theme song is "Tokyo Zero Hearts" (東京ゼロハーツ) performed by Faylan, while the ending theme is "Kyuusei Argyros" (救世Άργυρóϛ) by Yousei Teikoku.

Episode list

Merchandise

Some of the merchandise being released by Kadokawa Shoten include phone cards, tumbles and drawings autographed by Segawa.^[19]

References

External links

• Official anime website (Japanese)
• Tokyo ESP (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia