Episode 4: The Sunlit Garden Prelude

Depressed pianist Kaoru Miki decides Himemiya is just what he needs to cheer him up.  Nanami continues to be annoying.

This is a summary of episode 4 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 episode starts with Utena facing a blue-haired boy in the duelling arena.  He says that he must fight Utena even if it means hurting her, because he must have the Rose Bride, because "I must regain that music." The rest is flashbacks explaining how they got there.

This boy is Kaoru Miki, a student council member and the school's star pianist.  We've seen him before, but he's never been introduced.  He has a habit of timing things with a stopwatch - why, is never explained.  He is depressed, and obsessed with a song he plays on the piano and says he can't get quite right because he has lost his "shining thing." He seems to think Himemiya is in some way the answer to this problem, so he starts seeking her out.

Meanwhile, Himemiya and Utena are both having trouble with their math grades because of all the time they've been spending on this duelling nonsense.  Himemiya is also being bullied by Nanami's henchwomen because Nanami has formed the idea that Himemiya broke Miki's heart.  Miki rescues her, and they quickly become friends.  It is revealed that the song Miki is obsessed with is the one that he used to play as a duet with his little sister.

Miki starts tutoring Himemiya; while he's correcting one of her papers in the library, we briefly see him talking to "Jury," the sole female member of the student council, not further introduced.  Utena finds out that he's a student council member, and is displeased, but he assures her that he only wants to be friends, not duel, and he starts tutoring her too.

On one of those tutoring sessions, Nanami tags along, with big plans to slip disgusting (to her) animals into Himemiya's possessions so that the others will think Himemiya is a weird girl who keeps snails in her pencil-box, etc., and reject her.  It goes awry when it is discovered that Himemiya really does keep snails in her pencil-box and that Nanami is the only person who thinks there's anything odd about that.  After Chu-Chu eats the snack Nanami had brought, Himemiya serves them all shaved ice for dinner and Nanami throws a tantrum, feeling that it's unfair for her to be the only one who sees what a nutjob Himemiya is.  Himemiya goes off by herself and starts playing the piano - the same tune Miki can't forget.  He decides that maybe she can be the "shining thing" he lost with his sister.

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