ERI NINAMORI SPOILER!
EN
Eri Ninamori is Naota's class president and one of the few children in FLCL who appears, at first, to have being composed completely figured out.
She does not.
Ninamori's father is the mayor of Mabase, and when his affair and the possibility of her parents' divorce become public gossip, she responds by trying even harder to control how other people see her. She hides the fact that she needs corrective lenses by wearing contacts and even rigs the class vote so she can take the role she wants in the school play opposite Naota.
The pressure finally becomes impossible to keep separate from everything else happening around her. After contact with Naota transfers the strange growth associated with his N.O. channel to her, a Medical Mechanica machine begins emerging through Ninamori instead.
What makes her episode work is that the robot is almost secondary to what Naota discovers first: Ninamori is not naturally calm or mature. She is another twelve-year-old who has simply become very good at hiding when things hurt.
She does not.
Ninamori's father is the mayor of Mabase, and when his affair and the possibility of her parents' divorce become public gossip, she responds by trying even harder to control how other people see her. She hides the fact that she needs corrective lenses by wearing contacts and even rigs the class vote so she can take the role she wants in the school play opposite Naota.
The pressure finally becomes impossible to keep separate from everything else happening around her. After contact with Naota transfers the strange growth associated with his N.O. channel to her, a Medical Mechanica machine begins emerging through Ninamori instead.
What makes her episode work is that the robot is almost secondary to what Naota discovers first: Ninamori is not naturally calm or mature. She is another twelve-year-old who has simply become very good at hiding when things hurt.
ERI THROUGH THE ARCHIVE //
GROWING UP IN MABASE //
Open page →Ninamori and Performing Maturity
Open →The Class President Is Acting Too
Ninamori initially looks like the kind of person Naota thinks he is supposed to become: composed, capable and apparently untouched by the childish mess around her.
Episode 3 dismantles that image. Her father's scandal is tearing apart her family, she manipulates the class play vote to get what she wants, and the glasses she normally hides become another reminder that the version of Ninamori everyone sees is carefully managed.
Naota catches her in that contradiction because he is doing his own version of the same thing.
Episode 3 dismantles that image. Her father's scandal is tearing apart her family, she manipulates the class play vote to get what she wants, and the glasses she normally hides become another reminder that the version of Ninamori everyone sees is carefully managed.
Naota catches her in that contradiction because he is doing his own version of the same thing.
Why it matters
Ninamori gives FLCL another twelve-year-old who has mistaken appearing controlled for actually being okay. Naota does not need an adult to teach him that lesson. He sees it in somebody his own age.
N.O. CHANNEL MECHANICS //
Open page →Ninamori and the Transferred Growth
Open →Episode 3 · Naota Is Not the Only Route
Episode 3 complicates the idea that the strange growths belong only to Naota.
After Naota and Ninamori collide, the horn-like growth associated with his N.O. incidents appears on Ninamori instead. A Medical Mechanica machine eventually emerges through her during the school-play crisis.
After Naota and Ninamori collide, the horn-like growth associated with his N.O. incidents appears on Ninamori instead. A Medical Mechanica machine eventually emerges through her during the school-play crisis.
Why it matters
The episode shows that N.O. is not simply a permanent piece of hardware Haruko installed inside Naota. Whatever is happening can involve another person, and physical contact with Naota is enough to change who is carrying the problem.
RECURRING IMAGES & IDEAS //
Open page →The Forehead Growths
Open →N.O. Portals · Bodies Becoming Public Problems
Naota's strange forehead growths are literal signs that something impossible is trying to come through him. Episode 3 extends the image to Ninamori, whose carefully controlled public image falls apart at the same time that her own growth becomes impossible to hide.
The sexual and puberty imagery is hard to miss: sudden growths, embarrassment, bodies changing without permission and other people becoming extremely interested in what is happening.
The sexual and puberty imagery is hard to miss: sudden growths, embarrassment, bodies changing without permission and other people becoming extremely interested in what is happening.
Why it matters
FLCL does not require the growths to mean only one thing. The joke works because the science-fiction problem and the adolescent embarrassment are happening at exactly the same time.
