Episode 31: Her Tragedy

Nanami learns about big brothers, and does not react well.

This is a summary of episode 31 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.

Nanami takes a phone call from some girl who wanted to speak to Touga, telling her to call him on his cellular phone, but not offering the number.  Next we see Touga in the rose garden, cuddling another girl while talking to a third on the cellular, promising her that she's the only girl for him.  He's a busy guy.

While Touga is showering (he invited Nanami to join him, and paused too long before saying he was just kidding), Nanami sneaks into the bathroom and steals the phone.  Through the next two episodes, she will take calls from girls on it and variously tell them Touga has dumped them, or just listen, without saying anything, as they beg him for just one word of response.

Nanami's flunkies ask her about Touga's blood type, intending to figure their compatibility with him, but she refuses to tell.  She also gets jealous of his attention to Utena, and as she's telling Utena off for that, she slips on a banana peel Himemiya conveniently dropped, and is about to fall down the stairs when Akio scoops her up in his arms.  Nanami is smitten with Akio, whom she's never met before - and immediately jealous of both Utena and Himemiya for their closeness to him.

Nanami's flunkies again ask for Touga's blood type, and she refuses to tell, but when they ask for hers she blurts out the entire family's blood types - all B except Touga's which is A. The flunkies gingerly explain to her that it's not possible for two type Bs to have a type A child.  Touga must have been adopted.

Nanami is heartbroken.  She looks in the photo album and can't find any pictures of him as a baby.  She flips out, runs away from home, and couch-surfs for a couple of nights before Akio insists that she stay with them.  He jokes that he's assembling a harem - or was that a joke?

Touga visits to urge Nanami to come home, but she won't be swayed, and blurts out that she can't because he's not her real brother.  After he leaves, Utena tries to talk some sense to her, but Nanami won't be consoled either.  Having won the draw for Himemiya's half of the bed, Nanami gets up in the night to visit the bathroom, walks through the planetarium, sees Akio there, sees that he's undressed - and sees who's with him, also undressed.  Nanami suddenly needs to have a very difficult conversation with herself about brothers and sisters.  By the way, we don't get much time to notice, but the clothes on the floor in this scene are Himemiya's Rose Bride costume, not her school uniform.

previous episode | index | next episode