Nene Romanova

Nene Romanova is a fictional character from the Japanese anime series Bubblegum Crisis and its spin offs. Her original OVA voice actress was Hiramatsu Akiko. Her english voice actress is Susan Grillos.

Background

Nene is a member of the Knight Sabers, acting as a technical conductor and hacker, and is also an employee of the AD Police, functioning as the Knight Saber's mole in the ADP world. In both versions she is short, petite, and characterized as the least physically durable of the four Knight Sabers. Her hair is different in both versions, but she retains eyes that are predominantly green which change from regular green to blue green infrequently. She also has an affinity for candy and junk food in both versions (especially the 2040 version).

Her pink hard suit's offensive weapon is a weak laser gun, which is unsuited for taking out enemies; instead it is used to 'scribble' the Knight Sabers' signature onto their scene of actions. She relies mostly on her suit's computer and electronic warfare systems - and her feet - to stay away from an enemy. In "Bubblegum Crash", her suit's offensive capabilities were stocked up considerably, with an electromagnetic pulse striker and the capability of physically hacking into a boomer's computer brain.

Original Series

In the original series, a red-haired Nene apparently worked several different jobs in the AD Police when not working with the Knight Sabers. Outside of her skills as a computer hacker, she often appeared bubbly, naïve, and blissfully inept with real world logic. She was often teased by the other girls for not being more physically durable, but her intelligence with computers often carried her through. Leon McNichol often teased her as well, pretending to either hit on her, blackmailing or bribing her to do him a favor, or just sneaking up from behind to frighten her. There were slight implications of something going on between her and Sylia's brother, Mackey Stingray.

Nene does little fighting, focusing on sensor ops, battlefield communications, ECM, and ECCM. She was shown to have a more notable combat role and capacity in the first episode, but this ability was diminished considerably in the later episodes, and a reason was not supplied. In the eighth episode, she demonstrated her high levels of computer skill by out-hacking a boomer competitor.

Nene filled the role of the cute and idealistic bubblehead in the series. In the B-Club Special, it is revealed that she was a runaway from a strict home, and had been hacking into databases from a very early age. In the "Asu E Touchdown" video, the viewer was shown that she was recruited to the Knight Sabers after she had cracked an online code set up by Sylia. While she ran away from home, she seems to have mended fences by the eighth episode, when her mother wakes her up via video-phone so that she does not arrive late for work.

From the AIC 15th Anniversary artbook, which includes both artwork and descriptive text, the following information regarding Nene was translated (with conversions from metric to imperial added):

*Height: 1.56 m (5 ft 1 in)
*Weight: 48 kg (105.84 lb)
*Born: 2014-08-31
*Age (Series Start): 18
*Three Sizes: 80–60–85 cm (31–24–33 in) (these are also the measurements of the voice actress that voiced Nene)
*Blood Type: O Type
*Personality: (English approximation) A little naïve. A big space case and a follower of each new fad.
*Interest/Taste/Hobby: Eating cake after showering
*Special Skill: Computer hacking
*Birthplace: Tokyo [though the Anniversary Artbook describes this as "conjecture"]
*Explanatory Notes: Nene oversees the gathering and analysis of the Knight Saber's Military Intelligence.

These are not the only stats regarding Nene. The ones derived from the BGC crash game, "Crime Wave", state the following:

*DoB: August 31, 2014
*Height: 1.56 m (5 ft 1 in)
*Weight: 42 kg
*Chest: 84 cm (33 in)
*Waist: 58 cm (23 in)
*Hips: 86 cm (34 in)

Nene was rated, in the 15th Anniversary book, as the second best in the top ten list of favorite AIC female characters. Catty from Gall Force took the top spot.

2040 Series

A blonde haired Nene works as a computer dispatcher for the AD Police. A confident hacker, she is even more proficient with computers and hacking in this series than in the original, and unlike the original version, who tended to keep the sidelines in a fight, this Nene is also very aggressive and determined to get in on the action. She also loved to pester Leon McNichol in the same immature manner that a little sister would, which he barely tolerated because he occasionally needs favors from her.

When Nene learns that Leon has a thing for her teammate Priss, she decides to play match maker, but Sylia loudly objects and threatens to fire Nene from the team if she doesn't take things more seriously. This was a low blow to Nene's pride, but she managed to secure her position on the team by slaying a giant boomer eating monstrosity that almost ate her teammates. Nene also attaches herself to Linna as a surrogate little sister with a surrogate big sister, continuing to grow beyond her strictly comic relief role, and her relationship with Mackey is also explored further.