Rena Nakano

* **Overview**
* Gallery
* Relationships

* Anime
* Manga

Ichika Nakano, Nino Nakano, Miku Nakano, Yotsuba Nakano & Itsuki Nakano (quintuplet daughters)
Jinnosuke Mudou (ex-husband)
Fuutarou Uesugi (son-in-law)
Raiha Uesugi (sister-in-law)

## First Appearance

### Manga

Chapter 30 (flashbacks)
Chapter 57 (flashbacks)

## Portrayal

### English Voice

Brianna Roberts

**Rena Nakano** (中野なかの 零奈れな, *Nakano Rena*?) is the late wife of Maruo Nakano and the biological mother of the Nakano Quintuplets who worked as a teacher before she had succumbed to an illness when her quintuplet daughters were just ten or eleven years old.

More of her history may be explored the movie via flashbacks.

## Appearance

Rena is an extremely attractive young woman with chest-length dark-colored hair (dark-red in the anime) that has bangs swept to the right side (she had shoulder-length hair that hangs on the right side when she was a high school student), light-colored or dark-colored eyes (dark-blue in the anime), a well-endowed figure with large breasts and full pink lips; traits that had been passed down to her quintuplet daughters.

Because of her appearance, her beauty has charmed every male/female student and Shimoda comments on Rena's looks to Itsuki Nakano in different versions:

* In Chapter 57 (Pg. 10-Pg. 12), she mentions "that's because Sensei was such... an incredibly beautiful woman."
* In the English Sub, she comments on how "Sensei was just that damn *super* beautiful."
* In the English Dub, she noted that "Ms. Nakano was just that stunningly beautiful."

According to Jinnosuke Mudou in the movie and Chapter 109, he comments to Itsuki on how "you're the spitting image of your mother when she was young."

## Personality

Rena is known to be a very serious, unsociable, strict and stern woman, especially when it comes to teaching her students as she would often punish her students with iron-fist sanctions, but she was also very forgiving and for that (as well as her appearance), she was adored by her students that there was a student fan club dedicated to worship her.

According to Itsuki Nakano's words, Rena was "a gentle and maternal female."

## Background

Rena was a single mother who raised five children. Before her remarriage with Maruo Nakano, she and the quintuplets were living in poverty like the Uesugi Family where it is implied that the biological father of the quintuplets abandoned her and the children, which is why she advised the quintuplets to be careful when choosing men.

She was a teacher at a high school where she was well-loved and respected by her students and Shimoda was once her student where she was inspired by Rena to eventually work as a lecturer at a cram school.

She passed away five years prior to the start of the story on August 14 from an unknown terminal illness and her death was a shockto the quintuplets, whom she had constantly reassured that she would be fine . After her death, she is currently buried at the Nakano Family Grave where Itsuki Nakano mostly visits.

## Appearances

#### Season One

* Day Off (debut; flashback cameo)
* What's Been Built (flashback; cameo)

#### Season Two

* Seven Goodbyes, Part 3 (flashbacks; cameos)
* The Last Exam (flashback; cameo)
* The Movie (final appearance; flashbacks)

## Quotes

**Nakano Quintuplets**: “*Looky! We gathered these up for you... Thanks for working hard again today... Thanks for everything you do... Huh...? She froze... It knew it, this wasn't...*”

**Rena Nakano**: “*Seeing you five living healthily, to me, is the greatest happiness I could ask for.*”

— Rena Nakano's heartfelt response to the quintuplets' gift, *Chapter 87*

**Nakano Quintuplets**: “*Ah. He's here again... Ooh... the doctor... Mom, is he...*”

**Rena Nakano**: “*Well... I was going to introduce him to you girls eventually, but... in a sense... he's like a fan of mine.*”

— Rena Nakano shyly answers the quintuplets as they query about Maruo Nakano, *Chapter 87*

## Trivia

* The name **Rena** means "zero, nought" (零) (**re**) and "apple tree" (奈) (**na**).
	+ The kanji "零" fits in with the numerically based names of her daughters.
* The name of Toraiwa Hot Springs, the hot spring inn run by her father, is a pun toward Rena's personality. Tora (虎?) literally means tiger, addressing the fierceness toward her students, and Iwa (岩?) translates to rock, which can be interpreted as "hard to read."

## References

1. **^**
*Manga* Chapter 30.
2. **^**
*Manga* Chapter 88.