Episode 6: Take Care, Miss Nanami!

Nanami gets involved in a sick life and death dominance and submission mind game with a disturbingly young boy, Tsuwabuki Mitsuru.

This is a summary of episode 6 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 is scared because a series of events - such as objects nearly falling on her - has led her to believe that someone is trying to kill her.  She asks her brother Touga for help, and he tells her she's been reading too many detective novels.  When Utena's home-run baseball hits Nanami in the face, she suspects Utena of being her Nemesis; but gives that up when she, Utena, and Miki overhear Touga talking to Himemiya in the rose garden.  He is sternly ordering Himemiya to kill someone, responding to her objection that it's too cruel with "They're just vermin." Nanami assumes the worst - he's plotting to kill her, so he can romance Himemiya without interferance.  She bursts into tears and runs off, just missing the revelation that Touga was actually talking about the bug infestation.  Japanese grammar has features that make this mishearing more plausible in the original than it sounds in English, although the translators tried pretty hard to convey what was going on.

Then a runaway horse nearly tramples Nanami to death in the hallway of the school, and she's saved in the nick of time by a mysterious person who lends her his handkerchief, monogrammed with the name "Tsuwabuki Mitsuru".  Nanami decides she's in love with Mr. Tsuwabuki.  When she finally tracks him down, he turns out to be a little kid, much younger and shorter than Nanami herself.  Nonetheless, she is determined to have him for her boyfriend, and he seems quite content with that.

It quickly becomes apparent that Nanami's definition of a "boyfriend" is more like what sane people would call a "slave." In one memorable scene, we are introduced to Nanami's informal fan club:  Suzuki, Yamada, and Tanaka, who are a sort of barbershop trio; and Nanami has Tsuwabuki beat them up even though there are three of them and they're each a lot bigger than him.

Tsuwabuki explains to Utena and Miki that he's going along with it all because years ago, when he really was a little kid, he saw Nanami nearly trampled by a runaway bull.  Touga showed up and saved her at the last moment, and Tsuwabuki resolved that he wanted to be really cool and do that, too.  Thus he's been creating dangerous situations to save Nanami from.  Nanami appears out of nowhere with a rack full of electronic equipment through which she's heard every word of that confession, but as she's telling him off, a runaway boxing kangaroo appears and chases everyone around until Touga Kiryuu, Nanami's brother, shows up and punches it out.

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