Nendou Riki

"Partner! You've gotta stop befriending these kind of guys! I'm saying this as your best friend, trust me!"

- To Saiki Kusuo about Shun, Volume 0, Chapter 06

Riki Nendou (燃堂 力, ねんどう りき lit. Nendō Riki) is a dutiful and dull-witted boy, and one of the main characters of Saiki Kusuo no Ψ Nan. He likes helping people and prioritizing the weak, and although his silliness annoys his classmates, his motives are mostly well-intentioned. His trademark appearance are his exotic haircut and his oddly defined chin. Riki was starred by Arai Hirofumi in the live action of the series.

Appearance
Riki is evil in appearance and sloppy in behavior, and thus avoided by his classmates. His defining physical attribute is the scar on his left eye, something that can be used to differentiate between him, his father and mother, who all have the same faces. His hair is cut in a weird way with his bangs colored yellow while the rest is black. In school, he wears the standard PK Academy uniform but keeps his uniform open showing a t-shirt. Outside school he mostly wears collared shirts. He has a mustach, which he originally grew to match his favorite comic book villain, Baron Cola.

Personality
Riki's dominant traits are his apparent lack of intelligence and the scar on his left eye. Because of his looks, he is sometimes interpreted as a bad guy. He can be considered as a very strong young man as he can easily defeat Hairo in every aspect of physical activities and sports. Riki is the only person Saiki Kusuo cannot the read thoughts of. Because of that, he is usually an idiot with bad manners and typically needs things to be explained to him countless times, but he still cannot understand it.

However, despite his villainous face and actions, Riki is a kind man, which Kusuo himself acknowledges. But, oftentimes Riki is judged by others as a delinquent boy. His kindness was seen when he rescued a girl, who rejected him, from drowning and accepted her apology for harshly turning him down. At the same time, he also saved Kaidou Shun and Hairo Kineshi. Due to his past as an owner of a hamster, when he got Koriki No. 2 from Kusuo, he showed a great deal of patience and care to the hamster, and the two got along so well that he would sometimes take it with him to school. He is willing to help his classmates, giving pointers in cooking class, and sharing his coffee anmitsu with Saiki during the Okinawa trip. He cares deeply for his family, often visiting his father's grave despite never having met him and wanting to get a job so he could buy a gift for his mother. Although he lacked the competency to keep it for long. Ultimately, he has a heart of gold and a brain of mush.

Unlike his kind personality, he is often sexual and perverted toward women, including Teruhashi Kokomi (he gave her his outfit choice for her that appears inappropriate, and highly lacks fashion sense, in Chapter 127) and has a preference of dating those with stunning features, such as curvy waists and nice body parts, as stated in Chapter 171, similar to Toritsuka Reita (whose spirit guardian is the former's late father).

Abilities

 * Athletic Strength - Similar to Hairo Kineshi (despite that he is surpassed), Nendou has incredible strength that, while not on Saiki's level, is superhuman compared to normal people.
 * Ignorant Limitation Transcendence - Nendou has shown to do impossible feats just by being stupid to know that he can't, he is able to twist his neck like an owl, stay hydrated with a can of corn pottage and approach Saiki without being detected by his telepathy.

History
When Riki was a freshmen, he was introduced as a bully that constantly picks on Kusuo and copies his notes. He later changed and became Kusuo's stalker after thinking that Saiki was the one who saved him when he was framed by Takahashi. Later that day, Riki became a protector of Kusuo, scaring any people passing by Kusuo and constantly pestered Kusuo to eat ramen when school ends. In a time skip, Riki was a sophomore along with Kusuo and Shun, and the three are grouped together with Kusuo seen in the center. The students thought that Kusuo was the leader of their group.

Trivia

 * 燃堂 力 (Nendou Riki) can also be read as “Nendou Ryoku”, which is the Japanese term for telekinesis.
 * The kanji for his first name, 力,means “power”.
 * His childhood dream was to be a carpenter.
 * In his profile, Riki's blood type is said to be either O or B.
 * Kusuo explains that the reason he can not read Riki's mind is because the speed of Riki's thinking is the same as the speed he talks.
 * Shun's mother considers him as a genius (along with Kusuo) because they finished a workbook that she gave them quickly.
 * Although Riki is dumb, he can be very smart whenever Shun lies about his "power", as stated by Kusuo.
 * His guardian spirit is an "old hag", as stated by Toritsuka Reita.
 * He is the only character Kusuo can't read his mind, so he never knows what's going on inside of his head.