Jennifer "Jenny" Wakeman (designated robot name: Global Robotic Response Unit XJ-9) is the main protagonist of My Life as a Teenage Robot. She is the tomboyish robotic "daughter" of her "mother", Nora Wakeman, and a student of Tremorton High School. Designed as a crime-fighting robot, Jenny is equipped with much advanced weaponry within her body and possesses super strength and speed. However, she wishes to live the life of a normal teenager at the same time, and constantly struggles to balance out her two lives.
Background
Jenny was designed at least 15 years, and built 4 years, prior to the events of "I Was a Preschool Dropout". As her number indicates, she had several prototypes, whom she treats as her "sisters". While she was designed as a teenage robot, presumably with the adolescent mind of a 15-year old or so, she did undergo a period of infancy ("Humiliation 101"). As revealed in the same episode, she also spent some of her early years as a more crude, steam-powered robot before being upgraded to her final metallic form.
For an uncertain amount of time, she was prevented from leaving the house by her mother, except for the purpose of saving the earth, where she would not be viewed by the general populace. Following the events of "It Came from Next Door", she finally managed to interact with the outside world and make human friends, namely Brad Carbunkle and his younger brother Tuck, later enrolling in Tremorton High School.
Physical Appearance
Normal appearance
XJ-9's model plan.
Jenny stands at 6.5 feet (1.98 m) tall (according to Dr. Wakeman in "Raggedy Android") and weighs roughly 600 lbs. (revealed by Jenny herself in "Historionics"). She has blue pigtails, with bolts connecting them to her head (they can also act like rockets), blue "bangs", white skin, blue "clothes" (a crop top, a miniskirt, and knee socks), a belly bolt (a bolt that simulates a belly button), hands with 4 fingers each and center holes, and a "false nose". Jenny has no ears, instead possessing an auditory system "decades ahead of its time" ("Ear No Evil"). Her body processes are carried out by a fully-functioning metallic brain, to which her eyes are connected ("Mind Over Matter"). Her body also contains several access ports for downloading, charging, and other purposes. She wears blue lipstick
Human appearance
"Human" Jenny.
In "Raggedy Android", Nora designed an exo-skin so that Jenny could freely go around in public, but the first prototype skin ended up scaring humans. By the end of the episode, she decided to take off the exo-skin and reveal her true nature, and has since been able to blend into society freely as a robot.
In "The Return of Raggedy Android", Nora made adjustments to the suit which made Jenny look more human, but the skin ended up possessing a mind of its own and forced Jenny not to fight; however, Jenny poured a chocolate milkshake on herself, which made the skin short-circuit and come off, giving Jenny her free will back.
While as a "human", Jenny had light skin with freckles and rosy cheeks. She had red hair tied into two pigtails with black bows. She wore a blue dress with short sleeves and a short skirt, white socks and black shoes.
Personality
Thanks to having high Artificial Intelligence ("AI"), Jenny's personality is that of an eager young teenager, one who desires a sense of freedom, but also wants acceptance from her peers. She generally possesses a kind personality and likes anything pertaining to teenage activities, but hates it when her mother or her duties get in her way of her enjoyment. Unfortunately, she is easily trusting of others and, as a result, can be quite naive; the Crust Cousins, Brit and Tiff, have often taken advantage of Jenny's kind and trusting nature. She is usually sweet, but nonetheless she can also be mischievous, ignorant, careless, and somewhat mean at times despite her beauty.
Relationships
Nora Wakeman
Since Dr. Nora Wakeman is the one who designed and built Jenny, she comes to view her as her mother. Like some mothers with teenage daughters, Dr. Wakeman and Jenny sometimes argue with each other, but Dr. Wakeman truly loves Jenny as if she was a biological daughter. At first, Dr. Wakeman confined Jenny in her bedroom in fear of Jenny possibly not being accepted by society, but when she saw that Jenny made friends after sneaking out of the house, Dr. Wakeman decided to give her more freedom.
Dr. Wakeman would always alert Jenny about any crisis occurring in Tremorton whenever Jenny is out.
Brad Carbunkle
Brad is Jenny's first, best friend. She usually confides in him on her personal feelings and any other emotions she is going through. He often gives Jenny advice and helps her on missions and normal teenager activities, while causing trouble of his own. He always goes on Jenny's side of things and protects her from any harm, especially with drama at high school. They hang out often with each other. Brad is also Tuck's older brother.
Tuck Carbunkle
Tuck is the first human other than Jenny's mother, whom Jenny has come into contact with. While they first began their relationship in the first season, Tuck often called Jenny a "freaky robot". He has grown more and more close to Jenny, though, finding abilities he once feared to be rather "cool". Soon, Tuck and Jenny grow a close bond to the point that Jenny will fly to Tuck's aid whenever she hears him scream, even though Tuck rather abuses this factor in their relationship quite often. Tuck learns many morals through Jenny, and in the end, it's very much an older sibling to younger sibling relationship. Tuck is also Brad's younger brother
Sheldon Lee
The relationship between Jenny and Sheldon began very awkwardly. Although over the seasons the two grew more accustom to each other, Sheldon still often pampers Jenny every chance he gets. Jenny sympathizes with Sheldon and his obsession with her, although many times she grows very angry with him since he hinders her on many occasions. He is known to create for her a plethora of different gadgets ranging from blasters to over-sized pencil sharpeners.
The two grew close enough that Jenny would often rely on Sheldon to make minor repairs for her when she had some loose bolts, with Sheldon happily complying since he is a mechanical nerd (he once stole her blueprints). According to series creator Rob Renzetti, he intended to eventually bring Jenny and Sheldon together as a couple.[1]
Misty
Jenny first shared a friendly relationship with Misty when they first met in the episode "Teen Team Time" and when Misty came to Earth in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Troubles". First, Jenny felt great to have a teenage female friend who could stay on the phone all day long and do normal teenage activities with her. Later, in "Mist Opportunities", Misty helped Jenny fighting crime in Tremorton, leaving Jenny relying too much on her and slacking from her duties. However, a fight erupted betweeen the two friends as Misty wouldn't do anything unless the citizens paid her and Jenny couldn't stand people in danger. However, Misty already held the chance to beat Jenny up. Jenny then reminded Misty as she thought they were friends, which made Misty leave in anger and said: "The only reason I don't want to destroy you, is that nobody pays me to do it". No one knows if Jenny is still friends with Misty or not.
Brit and Tiff
At first Brit and Tiff tried to use Jenny or made fun of her due to her desire to become popular and befriend them. After she saved them from the fire caused by Tiff's hair clip messing with Jenny's ray, they refused to let the police arrest her until Jenny pulled the clip from her hand, which ended up with them being escorted from the school. Since then, Brit and Tiff have tried to get revenge or make Jenny miserable.
Don Prima
Jenny has a very big crush on Don and has a habit of blushing when speaking to him.
The Cluster
Jenny might hate the Cluster as much as she hates Queen Vexus, as she always has to stop their invasions and fights them all the time.
Queen Vexus
Vexus is Jenny's archenemy, who appears in various episodes throughout the series. They have a huge rivalry against one another. Vexus is the Queen of Cluster Prime, and has tried to force Jenny to become one with the Cluster.
Killgore
In the episode "Killgore", Jenny was annoyed by Killgore as he followed her everywhere and force her to surrender all the time. But she couldn't do anything as everybody else loved him so much, commenting that he was the cutest thing in the world. But Jenny saw Killgore as a defenseless toy, so she pretended to be Killgore's prisoner so that Killgore could impress the Cluster. However, just before being taken away by the Cluster, Killgore helped her by releasing her, and she began to fight the Cluster. Later in "Enclosure of Doom", Jenny had to work with Killgore to find a way out from Armaggedroid's body, then worked together to destroy him as well. In the end of the episode, Killgore left Jenny a message recorded by a tape, which immediately self-destruct.
Melody Locus
Jenny didn't feel anything uncomfortable when she first heard that Brad hang out with Melody. However, after she had discovered that Melody was the daughter of the evil Dr. Locus, Jenny tried to convince Brad that she was evil like her father, which led to her following them. Then Jenny kept forcing Melody to admit that she was evil made Melody angry, unleashing her true form. However, Melody then felt like she didn't belong anywhere and flew away, and saved Jenny and Brad from a car as well. Before that, Brad stated that Jenny was jealous with Melody.
Vega
When Jenny came to Cluster Prime, Vega saw her as a friend, even when she figured out that Jenny was XJ-9. Jenny promised to visit sometimes at the end of the special.
Powers and abilites
Jenny is a robot designed to protect earth from any threat, and accordingly she has a vast amount of superhuman abilities and weapons to do so.
- Superhuman Strength: According to the opening, Jenny has the strength of one million and seventy men, but the exact magnitude is unknown. This is because her strength, like most of her powers, has fluctuated over the series, however, her strength should effortlessly range into the multi-ton level at the very least, as she easily surpasses the capacity to lift 100 tons, but how much more is not known exactly. In the first episode she stops a meteor by her self, and in the next one she hits the ground so hard that she causes earthquakes on the city.
- Superhuman Speed: She possesses greater speed than the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Reflexes: She has superhuman reaction speed.
- Superhuman Agility: Jenny's agility is far beyond that of even an olympic level athlete, as is her balance and coordination.
- Invulnerability: Her outer shell is made from an Titanium Alloy to takes large amounts of damage, rendering her almost totally impervious to it, however, her internal mechanisms are generally less durable and more easy to damage.
- Superhuman Stamina: As a robot, she can exert herself for hours, and days before she runs out of energy.
- Superhuman Senses: She has extremely accurate senses.
- Superhuman Hearing: Jenny shows that she has super hearing from the first episode by burning a hole into a disk that was about to hit her in the back of her head.
- Superhuman Sight: She can see further than any human being.
- Electromagnetic Vision: She has the ability to see different kinds of EM spectrum, some of them real, some others fictional:
- Digital Vision: Makes everything looks like an 8 pixels video game
- Ultraviolet Vision: The ability to see ultraviolet light.
- Infrared Vision: The ability to see heat radiation.
- X-Ray Vision: The ability to see through solid objects.
- Rainbow Vision: Makes everything looks multicolor, with a 60's style.
- "Heat" Vision: Makes everything look "hot" (i.e. her mom using a bathing suit while everything else is melting).
- Sausage Vision: Makes everything looks like sausages.
- Electromagnetic Vision: She has the ability to see different kinds of EM spectrum, some of them real, some others fictional:
- Flight: Jenny has rocket boosters to fly located in her feet and "hair". She shows that she is beyond sound speed by getting out of the Earth’s atmosphere with ease. Further more, she shows to be able to fly faster than light.
- Various Weaponry: jenny's signature fighting style, consisting or unfolding a nearly unlimited number of weapons from inside her own mechanism, although seeming random, are always chosen to fit the situation, even when looking absurd.
- Energy Beam: She can fire energy blasts from her hands, feet, chest, eyes and "hair". She also has a wide array of weapons to do so.
- Stretchy Arms and Extendo-Fingers: She can stretch out her arms and fingers for miles, She can stop a ferris wheel that's rolling out of control with those arms.
- Shapeshifting: She can shapeshit into several (robotic) forms, such as a giant spider. "Victim of Fashion" shows that she can adapt new forms simply by scanning the imagery.
- Multilingualism: Jenny has integrated CDs with every single language in the world which allows her to speak every language known to man kind.
- Corrosive Reflex: She can defend herself by using The Acid Reflex Lamination which made by triple polycarbonate lamination that protects her against corrosive substances,
Foreign voice actors
- Spanish (Latin America):Leisha Medina
- France:Laura Prejean
- German: Tanya Kahana
- Polish:Joanna Pach
- Russian: Olga Zverova (season 1-2, some episodes of season 3), Olga Shorokhova (season 3)
- Hungary:Zsanett Czető
Trivia
- Jenny is the only character to appear in every episode.
- She possesses the phone numbers of her enemies, as revealed in "Humiliation 101", incuding the Cluster and the Space Bikers.
- She is similar to [[1]] Name Tano Anl Unit Hungry Hyena Voice from "Zig and Sharko" in the series.
- Jenny shares a voice actress with Ami from Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi. Both are voiced by Janice Kawaye and both speak the Japanese language.
- Jenny is ambidextrous, and equally adept in using both hands.
- Strangely, Jenny is seen blinking throughout the series, despite the fact a robot shouldn't need to.
- According to the XJ-9 master plan, Jenny runs on 450 Volts.
- According to the XJ-9 master plan, Jenny uses hydronium as rocket fuel
- On the 'Teenage Robot Blog' by the creators, you can see early versions of XJ-9 from 1998, where Jenny had antennas
Gallery
