Tokyo ESP

Tokyo ESP
Cover of the first volume as published by Kadokawa Shoten featuring Rinka Urushiba.
東京 ESP
Genre	Action, Comedy, Science fiction
Manga
Written by	Hajime Segawa
Published by	Kadokawa Shoten
English publisher	NA Vertical
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Monthly Shōnen Ace
Original run	February 27, 2010 – July 26, 2016
Volumes	16
Anime television series
Directed by	Shigehito Takayanagi
Produced by	Atsushi Itou
Written by	Hideyuki Kurata
Music by	Evan Call
Studio	Xebec
Licensed by	AUS Madman Entertainment NA Funimation UK Anime Limited
Original network	Tokyo MX, BS11, CTC, tvk, TVS, SUN, TVQ, GBS, MTV
Original run	July 11, 2014 – September 26, 2014
Episodes	12

Tokyo ESP (東京ESP(イーエスプー), Tōkyō Īēsupī^?) 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. This leads her to work part-time as a waitress. Her life changes when she gains the ability to use extrasensory perception (ESP). An anime television series adaptation aired from July to September 2014.

Tokyo ESP begins with Rinka Urushiba as a fairly normal high school girl, though she is a bit poor and her father who is a police officer is her only family. This forces her to work part-time as a waitress after high school in order 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. This witness is a boy from her school with a strangely scratched-up face. Out of curiosity, she touches one of the glowing fish, which causes her to pass out. After she wakes up, she finds out that she has developed the power to phase 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 is planning a bigger scheme to secure utopia with their ranks consisting of strong ESP fighters and users.

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. 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. Segawa decided to go with the female lead like he did with the Ga-Rei manga series. 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.