Episode 18: Mitsuru's Impatience

Tsuwabuki wants to be an adult, and the Black Rose necromancers use him as a zombie Duellist.

This is a summary of episode 18 of the anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena.  You are welcome to link to it, but not to repost it elsewhere.  For more information, and other episode summaries, see the index.

The student council meets, in the rain, to discuss the recent duels.  Nanami quizzes Jury on what it felt like when Shiori pulled the sword from her heart; and Jury and Miki warn Nanami to watch her back, because she's likely to be next.  At the end of the meeting, Tsuwabuki, who is still acting as Nanami's valet, shows up and is told that he shouldn't be there, because the terrace is reserved for the student council and their "grown-up talk."

Utena and Himemiya comment to each other on Tsuwabuki's devotion, but his childhood friend Mari is not so impressed.  She tells him to stop letting Nanami boss him around, but he says he's happy to serve Nanami.  He happens to be holding a banana (part of the large collection of groceries going into Nanami's lunch for the next day) when he says, "If she eats this, I'll be satisfied." Mari gets the subtext, but she annoyingly refuses to explain it.  She'd been eating a chocolate bar she filched from one of the grocery bags herself; after she leaves, Tsuwabuki looks at what's left of the candy and considers biting it himself, thinking "An indirect kiss...," but does not do so.

Nanami doesn't eat the lunch, because when Tsuwabuki tries to deliver it, she's in the act of accepting Mikage's lunch invitation.  Over his shoulder, as he's leading her off, Mikage invites Tsuwabuki to visit the Mikage Seminar too.  Utena and Himemiya then find Tsuwabuki in the library, trying to research what it is that makes people adults.  Utena tells him that an adult is someone who has done "certain things," but is put on the spot when he asks just what; later, to Akio, she muses that she isn't sure whether she's an adult herself.

Mikage and Mamiya plan to use Tsuwabuki as their next pawn, Mamiya commenting that Mikage is "a horrible man." Then Mari finds Tsuwabuki earnestly watching kissing scenes from romance movies, trying to learn about "certain things." She tells him there's no substitute for practical experience; he tries to kiss her; and she reacts unfavourably.  Later, when he's brooding in his dorm, Nanami shows up at the door to tell him he doesn't need to grow up; she likes him the way he is.  That's the last straw.

Tsuwabuki takes the Black Rose interview, says he wants to kick over the whole world, becomes a zombie, and fights Utena with a sword and dagger pulled from Nanami's bosom, all according to formula.  Each desk in the arena is decorated with a blobby statuette of a human figure, holding a bitten chocolate bar over its head.  In the last scene, after he's recovered his senses, we see him interacting slightly more positively with Mari.

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