It's night in Tokyo, and Tenchi is toweling off. He picks up the phone and calls Washuu (which he does by pressing the "*" key.) Washuu is engaged in some chemical experiment which explodes when she's distracted by the ringing phone. Washuu is miffed when she answers the phone (and the phone is pretty worried) but her mood lightens immediately when she realizes that it's Tenchi calling.
(What are they talking about? I'll speculate a little later.)
The next morning, Ayeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, Kiyone, and Ryou-oh-ki get up bright and early and start fixing food and bringing stuff for a trip to Tenchi's. Ryouko is still sleeping -- her alarm clock has rung, but she smashed it along with the table it was on. The gang lines up with all of their stuff in front of a trampoline beneath the star that is the warp between the house and Tenchi's apartment. One at a time they leap onto the trampoline up to the ceiling.
A smiling Ayeka rises to the star. WHAM! She bashes her head on the ceiling. A smiling Sasami rises to the star. WHAM! She bashes her head on the ceiling. A smiling Mihoshi stops smiling and looks at Ayeka and Sasami bashed up on the ceiling. Before the thought "This isn't good...." can pass through her head, WHAM! She bashes her head on the ceiling. An angry Kiyone cannot stop her flight to the ceiling. WHAM! She bashes her head on the ceiling. A worried Ryou-oh-ki flies up to the star. WHAM! She completes the quintet.
As the injured girls lie on the floor, the star looses itself from the ceiling and floats to the floor. As the girls puzzle over this latest development, Washuu makes her entrance, doing Harlem Globetrotter-like tricks with the fallen star. The girls start asking Washuu about the star (especially Mihoshi, who starts rambling.)
(What's going on here? Here's what I'm speculating. The call to Washuu follows a kind of comedic pattern. Washuu blushes at first, and she probably talks like Tenchi is calling her personally for some romantic reason. Tenchi gets a little flustered and says "It's not that!" And then they get down to whatever Tenchi wanted to talk about. I conjecture that Tenchi asked her to turn off the warp. [Although he can just take the comforter off his bed.] Ayeka and the rest of the girls are quite worried about this. They may be worried that Tenchi forgot about the date they made. It looked like the girls had this planned. When Ayeka talks to Washuu at one point, medical equipment shows up in the background. Is she worried that Tenchi is sick? Ayeka is quite worried about Tenchi in the past few episodes. Ryouko is not as worried. She seems to be more confident of her relationship with Tenchi, based on the 10th episode.)
(UPDATE: Junji Inaba in Japan has confirmed that Tenchi did, in fact, ask Washuu to turn off the warp.)
Meanwhile, Sakuya has brought Tenchi some breakfast (rice balls) in front of the shrine that he's taking care of. Tenchi is still in his shrine outfit. Tenchi says something that makes Sakuya blush. Then Tenchi's friend Ugly Guy (whose name is something like Amagasaki) comes by to take Tenchi away. ("Get dressed! We're going to be late!") And so Sakuya is a little disappointed.
Ryouko is still asleep, dreaming of Tenchi.
The other girls (except Washuu) and Nobuyuki are at the breakfast table, but they're all angry at Nobuyuki for some reason. Tensions are high. Ayeka starts yelling at Nobuyuki, and she's joined by Sasami, and then Ryou-oh-ki. Then they start crying. Then Washuu comes in, dragging behind a blackboard. (It's a really high-tech blackboard, where things appear on it without you actually drawing on it.) And she starts to explain something. At first the other girls don't quite get it, but eventually comprehension is reached, and all the girls leave quite happy. Nobuyuki is left behind. He was kind of confused about the girls yelling at him before, but now that they're all happy, he's really worried.
Ryouko is still asleep.
(What just went on here? The girls, I think, want to get to Tokyo. I'm not quite sure why they're yelling at Nobuyuki. Perhaps it's because he went there and they aren't able to? What is Washuu trying to explain? Unfortunately, the visual aids are a bit too universal. It's a bar, which she divides into three sections, the middle one which is very large and the last one pretty small. The small one is then expanded, and Washuu divides this into six pieces of varying sizes, and she highlights the bottom one again. I could understand only a few words of her explanation -- Nobuyuki and shojou manga. Then she finishes off by showing cute little heads of all the girls (including Ryou-oh-ki.) The heads all start smiling. And then all the girls are happy and they leave excitedly. I can hear Sasami talking about Tenchi as they leave. I'm conjecturing that perhaps Washuu has broken down the budget of the household and concluded that that Nobuyuki must have enough money stashed away somewhere to get all the girls to Tokyo. This would make the girls happy, because if they could get their hands on it, they could visit Tenchi, and not worry that Nobuyuki would get Tenchi and Sakuya together or something stupid like that.)
(UPDATE: Junji in Japan has confirmed that Washuu was indeed breaking down Nobuyuki's monthly budget. She's a genius accountant! Nobuyuki had claimed that there was no money for train tickets to Tokyo.)
Tenchi's high school is holding a festival, and people are setting up. Ugly Guy, Tenchi, and Sakuya all arrive. Sakuya's friends run up to her. (There's Nosy Girl, who's got black hair and seems to be the leader of this gang of three, and Ditzy Girl, who's got brown hair and glasses and seems to be a fairly typical Japanese schoolgirl in these cartoons, and the Beanpole, who's got brown hair and is pretty tall.) While Ditsy Girl and the Beanpole talk with Sakuya, Nosy Girl starts talking with Tenchi. Tenchi is initially a bit wary of her. Nosy Girl starts dropping subtle hints about him and Sakuya ("nudge, nudge") but when Tenchi evidentally fails to pick up on this, she gets more explicit. ("Kiss her, you fool!" -- well, not that explicit.)
(UPDATE: "PsychoPixi" tells me that Nosy Girl is telling Tenchi about the school "jinx." I don't know why they call it a "jinx" because it not something bad. Anyway, the story goes that if a couple confesses their love to one another at the end of the school festival, then their love will be true.)
This matchmaking operation is broken up for the nonce when Ugly Guy playfully puts Tenchi in a headlock.
Meanwhile, Yuugi watches as the pink and white crystals drift closer together....
Tenchi and Sakuya are by themselves, carrying some supplies to their booth. Tenchi is thinking about what Nosy Girl told him.
Other groups are working on booths are things, and one group, cleaning out some old stuff, finds an old beat up mask, such as might be worn by a female wrestler, which they discard....
Tenchi and Sakuya, meanwhile, bring the stuff back to their booth where the gang of three is waiting. Nosy Girl makes some excuse to leave Tenchi and Sakuya by themselves, and Ditsy Girl and the Beanpole get the hint and they make their excuses too. The trio sneak behind some booth a little ways away and watch to see if nature takes its course.
It doesn't, as Amagasaki, comes up and grabs Tenchi in a gesture of comraderie. The three girls are quite peeved at this turn of events.
...As is Yuugi, who has been watching. So she does something about it. She sends something down to posses that mask I mentioned early. It is a large female wrestler.
As Amagaski continues to act friendly and generally spoil things for those who are desperately hoping for a Tenchi-Sakuya romance, a small bolt of lighting comes out and hits Amagaski. It's the female wrestler, who sends Amagasaki flying away. This happens quick as lighting, so all Tenchi and Sakuya know is that one second, Amagaski is there, and the next, he wasn't.
Back in the Tenchi home, Ryouko finally wakes up and leaves her room. She finds Nobuyuki tied up and the house ransacked! She ungags Nobuyuki to find out what's going on.
What's going on is explained by the other girls, who walk into the main room at the time. They've tied up Nobuyuki and are searching the house for his secret stash of money.
They all sit down in the main room, amidst the mess and a still bound Nobuyuki to explain this to Ryouko. But Ryouko decides not to join them, delivering a somewhat insulting message (well it sounded like that) before flying back to her room. Ayeka is enraged at this. Nobuyuki cries.
(What's happening here? I think Ryouko is not as interested in going to Tenchi right now because she feels she has a superior relationship with Tenchi than the other girls. I'm kind of basing this on stuff that happens in the next episode. It also hints at another reason Ryouko doesn't join in the search, but I'm not entirely clear on that.)
Back at the festival, the three girls contrive to send Tenchi and Sakuya to get some food. (A very clever plan to get them alone again!) As Tenchi and Sakuya walk back with the bags of food they get to talking, quite naturally. Ugly Guy has made his way back across town. He runs after them. "Masaki!" he calls. This sends the female wrestler back into action, and quick as lightning she tosses him away. Tenchi and Sakuya turn around and see nobody. ("Did you hear that? It sounded like Amagasaki.")
Back in Okayama, the girls are exhausted by their (so-far) fruitless search. Except for Ryouko, who's abandonded them, and Washuu. Where is Washuu? the girls wonder.
Washuu's been off doing Washuu-like things, and she's just brought in a silly looking St. Bernard-like dog with a funny cap and a monocle. Ryou-oh-ki playfully paws at it, Mihoshi and Sasami think its really cute, Ayeka and Kiyone aren't as impressed. I guess "Poochie" will help them search.
Tenchi and Sakuya return with the food and the three girls ask them to do something else. As Tenchi and Sakuya leave, they talk about their clever plan to get Tenchi and Sakuya together. They end off by shouting "Go for it, Masaki!" (Everybody likes Tenchi.)
In a scene I don't really understand, Ayeka finds a 500 yen coin under the house. Poochie starts making some dog-like sound, and Ayeka tries to calm it. Perhaps the dog wants the money. At any rate, the dog never shows up again.
Meanwhile, the Female Wrestler delivers a soliloquy. (I think she likes Amagasaki.) She sees him looking for Tenchi. He looks very determined.
Tenchi and Sakuya are putting up posters around the school. Ugly Guy finds them and yells "Masaki!" Then the female wrestler shows up in a bolt of lighting and knocks him away. Ugly Guy runs back, and yells "Masaki!" The female wrestler delivers a pile driver to him. He runs back and yells (much more weakly) "Masaki!" She clobbers him again. And this happens again....
Tenchi and Sakuya are up on the roof of the school, and Ugly Guy is pretty beat. Nevertheless, he's still really determined. He trudges up the steps to the roof, opens the door, and finds a wrestling ring in front of him. The female wrestler is there.
Ugly Guy jumps in the ring. The female wrestler makes her move and knocks him down. Can he get up? He imagines Tenchi at ringside encouraging him. He imagines the 4 girls (Sakuya and her three friends) at the other corner also encouraging him. Bouyed by this, he gets up. The female wrestler charges and bounces him off the ropes, to set up a clothesline. But as Amagasaki crashes into her, he clotheslines her as well! She falls!
She manages to say a few words as she lies there defeated. (Probably complementing Ugly Guy.) And then she and the ring disappear in a bright flash.
The bright flash surprises Tenchi and Sakuya. Tenchi pushes Sakuya out of the way to protect her, and they fall to the roof, Tenchi lying on top of Sakuya. Their lips pass dangerously close together, and Sakuya is shocked.
Amagasaki sees them and gives a cry of surprise. Tenchi sees him and gets up. Amagasaki very hurriedly apologizes and beats a hasty retreat. Tenchi tries to say "It's not what you think!" or something like that, but he's not fast enough for Amagasaki to hear. Sakuya is embarassed. Or disappointed?
As Ugly Guy leaves, he finds the female wrestler's mask, and he's quite happy. ("Yatta!")
Back in Okayama, the house seems to have returned to normal. Nobuyuki is untied. Ayeka is sitting on the couch. Nobuyuki comes in and starts talking to Ayeka. I guess he's asking her if they're still angry or trying to tie him up or mess up the house. Ayeka says no, and Nobuyuki leaves, relieved. Ayeka smirks and goes back to reading her comic. It's one of Nobuyuki's shoujo manga, and at the page Ayeka has turned too, there's a blue envelope. They've found what they're looking for! And Ayeka laughs....
At night, Sakuya sits by the water fountain. She touches her lips, and thinks about what almsot happened. She runs off happy.
Tenchi lies on his bed, and he touches his lips too, smiling.
And Yuugi watches....
And Ryouko stands by a lake in Okayama, alone with her thoughts....
I am the keeper of Gummi Wisdom!
Email address: gee@math.berkeley.edu