Episode 5: The Sunlit Garden Finale

Miki duels with Utena, hoping to win Himemiya and recover his sister's lost music - which only existed in his own imagination anyway.

This is a summary of episode 5 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.

Miki fences (Western-style, not kendo) with Jury, who is captain of the fencing team.  She congratulates him on his improved skills - it's the first time he's been able to beat her - and speculates that this may be due to the influence of the girl whose exam he was correcting; but she cautions him that "Your sword is not for battle." (Fnarr, fnarr.)

He continues to woo Himemiya, admiring her piano playing, and tells her and Utena how, when he was a little boy, he and his sister used to play "The Sunlit Garden" on the piano.  Adults acclaimed them as prodigies; a concert was arranged; but after allaying his sister's fears with the promise that he'd be there with her, he became sick with measles and wasn't able to play.  She was expected to play alone; broke down; and never played piano again.  Ever since then, Miki has been trying to recapture the feeling of his sister's music.

But even though Utena is anything but a harsh mistress, Miki can't stand to see Himemiya submitting utterly to her.  She says she would even stop playing the piano, if Utena wished.  He calls a meeting of the student council and demands that they stop the duelling because it's unfair to Himemiya; when they refuse, he challenges Utena.  Along the way, Miki briefly encounters a sneering young woman who doesn't seem to like him much, and looks a lot like him...

Utena wins the duel, but mostly because Miki is distracted at a critical moment by Himemiya's cheering for Utena, which makes him question his assumption about her unwilling submission.  Immediately afterward, we hear his sister (yes, of course that was his sister) explaining to a friend that although she used to play piano as a small child, she was never any good at it, and adults just assumed she must be good because her brother's talent allowed him to cover for her when they played together.  The episode concludes with Miki brightly advising Utena that he'll do better next time.

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