While living in Ibaraki Prefecture, she developed mental problems followed by breaking many windows and assaulting several male students to serious injuries with a baseball bat at her local school, and indulged in self-harm, led her to moved back to Hinamizawa.

[7] She developed some quirks and oddball tendencies such as taking things home from places including dump because they're cute.

In the anime, this shift is done through uncomfortably angled framing, as well as a gradual increase in the use of blackout shadows to obscure half of Rena’s face.

[23] Rena is portrayed by Airi Matsuyama [ja] in the live-action film series,[3] and by Minami Kato in the TV drama.

[24] Asahi, the illustrator of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Oni, described Rena as the most "kawaii" character overall.

[26]: 7  With her parents' divorce, she became mentally unstable and desperate, attacking three of her male classmates with a baseball bat and smashing all the windows in her school.

[26]: 6  She believed that "Oyashiro-sama" was punishing her for leaving the village by destroying her family and making maggots live in her blood.

[15] The expanded arcs of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kizuna includes Rena being involved in a series of murder cases investigated by Tomoe Minai.

[30][31][32] In Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou, the sequel to the series, Rena was present for the Three Families announcing that Oyashiro-sama's curse is no more, and entered university as she grown-up.

[33][34][35] One of the main characters in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei which is set in 2019, Kihiro, is mentioned as Rena's son.

APGNation's Nicole Seraphita praised the character development of Rena Ryūgū as "perhaps the best of the lot", pointing out she comes across as a rather generic girl-next-door type at first, but she evolves into something far more interesting as more of her background is revealed.

[63] Jenni Lada for Siliconera also pointed out that the shift of Rena is especially evocative due to she was set up as the "cutest" character at the beginning of the story.

[66] Theron Martin of Anime News Network praised Rena's English voice actor Mela Lee for performing sufficiently close to the original.

'), stemming from she suddenly screams the term as Keiichi angers her in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Onikakushi-hen.

[72] The derivatives of the buzz word included the nendoroid figure of Rena Ryūgū with interchangeable "Uso Da" face,[73] a mug,[74] a theme hoodie,[75] and LINE stickers.

[76] In 2007, the 12th episode of When They Cry: Kai pulled temporarily from the airwaves because Rena bore some similarities to a murder incident where in Kyoto, a female minor killed her father with an axe while he slept.

[78] In 2017, the Ogawa Junior High School in Nakagawa, Tochigi found 12 glass doors were broken and the word "Higurashi" written in red spray paint across the windows in the staff room, which was thought to be a reference to Rena Ryūgū.