Tenchi continues to mind the shrine in Tokyo during the summer. He's dressed in his priest outfit, doing some ritual thing. (He was this staff with all sorts of paper attached to the end, and he waves it about.) The old guy who runs the place comes in to check on Tenchi's work. He does a couple of phantom swings with his staff and his back gives out. (This is the reason Tenchi's staying in Tokyo. Recall that Luke Perry told Tenchi about this injury last episode, so Tenchi had to tend to the shrine.)
Tenchi goes to help up the old man, and this moment is captured on film by Sakuya. She's just walked in with an old 35mm camera. The old man sees this and gets in the frame with Tenchi and poses.
Sakuya it seems has gotten hold of this camera, and she wants to spend the day with Tenchi taking lots and lots of pictures. She starts out by shooing the old guy into the background and taking pictures of Tenchi in action in the shrine. (Which actually turn out a bit goofy, as Tenchi really wasn't expecting to do this in front of the camera.)
Yuugi watches as Sakuya advances the film in her camera, and says something suitably foreboding, and if I spoke Japanese, I'd know exactly what.
Meanwhile, back in Okayama, Sasami tells her big sister Ayeka about her recent meeting with Yuugi (last episode). (Yuugi angrily made her exit admidst conjured wind after Sasami refused to come with her.) Ayeka is shocked, because she remembers that the person who attacked the Tenchi house (13th episode) was also Yuugi, and she tells Sasami that she thinks they are the same person. Sasami doesn't believe that her friend Yuugi would do such a thing, but a worried Ayeka thinks that Yuugi wants Sasami for some reason.
Ayeka and Sasami decide to draw a picture of the Yuugi each of them saw to see if they are in fact the same person, and they each throw themselves into this task. The living room floor becomes littered with crumpled up attempts at portraiture. Ayeka has ink smeared over her face. (Actually, it looks a bit like the warpaint she wears in battle mode.) Finally, they show the pictures. Ayeka has drawn a very evil looking, ugly crone, with spikes on her robe. ("Evil Yuugi" by Ayeka. Black ink on A4 paper.) Sasami has drawn a smiling rosy-cheeked little girl with a rather pastoral background and a friendly sun. ("Yuugi-chan" by Sasami. Crayon on A4 paper.)
This obviously isn't getting them anywhere. Ayeka then remembers that Washuu has a video of the attack, so she brings Sasami into Washuu's room and asks Washuu to show Sasami the attack. Ayeka is very protective of Sasami, standing behind her and holding her shoulders. Washuu starts the video, and to Sasami's dismay, her friend is indeed the same person who attack the Masaki house.
Meanwhile, Sakuya continues to take pictures of Tenchi around Tokyo. Tenchi's shrine duty fulfilled for the day, he now sits at a table in front of a streetside cafe. (It's name is the "Memories Cafe," incidentally.) Sakuya is really into her photographic mission -- she's brought out a light meter to make sure everything is right. Tenchi is posing with a green drink (a mint julep?) underneath the table's umbrella and Sakuya snaps a picture. Tenchi seems to be drooping a bit -- I guess they've been at this for a while.
Sakuya sits down with Tenchi. Tenchi notices how old her camera is. (As I said before, its a 35mm camera, but not one of the automatic computerized battery-powered ones that have been popular for years now, but an old-fashioned silver one, in which you advance the film manually.) He wonders where she got it. Could it be her father's? he asks. "My father?" asks a surprised Sakuya. Tenchi begins to ask her about her father, but Sakuya doesn't answer the question. She distracts him by saying something that embarrasses Tenchi (perhaps something about saying that Tenchi's getting more serious about her? I'm not sure.) She gets up (to take another picture?) and Tenchi hurriedly tries to leave the table but instead mangaes to fall down and knock the table and his drink over. Sakuya, giggling, takes a picture of Tenchi's lack of grace.
Meanwhile, the Masaki residence has undergone a bit of interior redecorating. Sasami is sitting in the living room, with Ryou-oh-ki on her head, surrounded by a tangles of ropes and mallets and booby traps. Ayeka is afraid Yuugi will come for Sasami, and she wants to be prepared. She drops down from the ceiling, armed with a spear, which she handles deftly. (She could be in a Hong Kong action movie, I think. Her summer clothes suit her.) Her Guardians are also dressed for battle. Sasami is wondering if Ayeka could be over-reacting.
A curious Ryou-oh-ki picks at one of the ropes. A mallet swings down and knocks Ryou-oh-ki off Sasami's head onto the floor. A quartet of spears embed themselves in the floor just around an panicked Ryou-oh-ki, and Ryou-oh-ki flees from that spot just before a giant mace demolishes it. As she runs, a trapdoor opens beneath her. She manages to tread air for several seconds before a pan drops from above and knocks her into the pit.
Sasami gently recovers Ryou-oh-ki. Ayeka says that she'll have to protect Sasami, especially since Kiyone and Mihoshi aren't around anymore. The Guardians agree and an excited Ayeka lifts up her spear in readiness and moves a rope....
While the Guardians and Ayeka deal with a fair amount of chaos, Sasami pets Ryou-oh-ki. She still has a hard time reconciling the two Yuugis. Would Yuugi really hurt me? she wonders.
Tenchi, meanwhile, is still being posed for pictures by Sakuya, this time in front of the fountain. Eventually she gets him in the center of the frame, and she snaps the picture. Two plainclothes detectives, one with survellience equipment, are staking out some criminal. Sakuya asks them to take her and Tenchi's pictures, and of course they immediately agree.
Tenchi and Sakuya stand side by side in front of the fountain, with the detectives ready to snap their picture. (One of them is using his video equipment to capture them on film.) "Wait a second," says Sakuya. She grabs Tenchi by the hand and pulls his arm around her shoulders. "That's better," she grins. Tenchi blushes. The detectives take the picture, and Sakuya thanks them as the criminal takes this opportunity to make his getaway. The detectives run off after him.
As they stand by the fountain, Tenchi asks Sakuya about her parents again, and Sakuya responds by spotting an ice cream stand and running off to get some ice cream for the two of them. Tenchi wonders at this behavior. The crystal next to his chest begins to glow...
...while Washuu in the Tenchi house begins to experiment upon her crystal.
Nobuyuki arrives home to find his house has sprouted barbed wire and battlements. He's greeted by a camoflauge-clad Guardian with ammunition belts who won't let him into his own house. He tries to get past him by a land mine blows him far far away.
Meanwhile, Sakuya gets her ice cream. The nice old ice cream vendor gives her two quadruple-decker cones (I guess because Tenchi and Sakuya are such a cute young couple.)
Nobuyuki is sneaking through the tall grass, hoping to find a way into his house. But a Guardian finds him and flushes him out.
Tenchi and Sakuya scarf down their ice cream. (They can inhale a whole scoop into their mouths at once, although it gives them an ice cream headache.) The detectives, captured criminal in tow, pass by, though neither Tenchi nor Sakuya notice. Tenchi brings up Sakuya's parents again, and this causes her much dismay. She stands up, and lets her last scoop of ice cream fall to the ground. Staring into the fountain, she sadly tells Tenchi she doesn't remember her parents.
Meanwhile, in outer space, Ryouko is pillaging a forest planet. She's stealing a gold statue from poor villagers. The villagers watch helplessly as (what I assume is) their ancestral treasure is taken by a cruel pirate. An elder villager runs after the statue, and Ryouko trips him. He pleads with her not to take it, but Ryouko just laughs gleefully, saying it'll fetch a big price on the black market. Hotsuma, sitting back, is pleased.
"Stop it!" a young boy yells. (He reminds me of Astroboy.) He ineffectually punches Ryouko's legs, trying to get Ryouko to not bully his grandfather. Ryouko picks him up, and holds him above the ground at eye level. The villagers gasp, hardly daring to consider what cruel fate will befall the boy. The plucky little lad is not intimidated and kicks Ryouko in the face.
Angrily Ryouko lets fly a punch. But as she does so, Tenchi's crystal is loosened from her wrist. It flies up in front of the boy's face and as it does, Ryouko can see Tenchi's visage in it. And she stops her fist just in front of the boy's face. "What's wrong, Ryouko?" asks Hotsuma. And when she doesn't answer: "Ryouko!" Ryouko just tosses the boy back to his grandfather.
"Tenchi," she says. Hotsuma snarls silently.
In her new spaceship, Kiyone receives the notice of Ryouko's latest theft. The news depresses her. Suddenly, she hears Mihoshi's voice warning of impending trouble. Quickly Kiyone readies the weapons, as from outside the ship comes absolutely nothing.
That threat taken care of, Kiyone turns to Mihoshi to figure out what danger is befalling them, and (as she suspected), it's just Mihoshi playing with her Universe Police action figures. (The Universe Police is a bizarre kiddie show that Mihoshi loves. It was introduced in the 11th episode.) Kiyone watches as Mihoshi leads the good guys to their inevitable triumph over the bad guys, and then she begins to lecture Mihoshi.
As she lectures Mihoshi, her crystal drops from her wrist, and in it she sees images of the Tenchi house. Mihoshi, with big watery eyes, appeals to Kiyone to forgive her, and Kiyone (much to Mihoshi's surprise and delight) relents. (I'm not entire sure what Kiyone and Mihoshi were talking about, but I think they're going to visit Okayama again.)
In Tenchi's Tokyo apartment, he and Sakuya look over the pictures taken that day. Sakuya points out a picture of Tenchi where he's got kind of a goofy looking expression on his face. Tenchi points out an even dorkier and goofier looking picture of Sakuya. A very embarrassed Sakuya snatches the picture away, bemoaning it all the while. (Tenchi has a very un-anime smirk on his face when he shows her the pic. It kind of reminds me of a Fox Trot strip. Delightful!)
Tenchi goes to get some orange juice for the two of them. As she does, Sakuya takes hold of the picture of the two of them, with Tenchi's arm around her, and puts it in a picture frame. She gives it to him as he returns. "Thank you," he says, and puts it on his desk -- next to a larger, faded picture. It's the picture he took of his extended family (with Ryouko digitally pasted in) just before he left for Tokyo. (It happened in the 1st episode.)
Sakuya notices Tenchi pause as he regards both pictures. "What is it?" she asks. And then she sees the picture. She gets a little jealous, and asks him if he misses them. He denies it, but she knows he's lying. She begins to chastise him. Sometimes he seems so distant, thinking about Ryouko and Ayeka, she says. She turns his back to him, and stares out the window.
Tenchi tries to explain himself. His roots, his family is in Okayama. It's natural to think of them. As he talks, Sakuya turns again to face him. She begins to think of her family, what they did for her....
And in her mind, a cold wind bites at her. She holds her head in pain, and remembers....
She remembers Tenchi kissing her...
bringing food to Tenchi at the shrine before the festival...
the time on the rooftop when they almost kissed...
meeting Tenchi in front of the school...
admiring him doing an architecture assignment...
holding his hand as they run across a bridge...
walking away from Tenchi after his father rescued her from his copy...
leaving Tenchi after being stood up...
being threatened by Ryouko when she came to Tenchi's house...
being turned down by Tenchi after asking to go steady...
showing a just-arrived Tenchi around Tokyo...
She remembers the moment when Tenchi and she first saw each other...
and then.... and then....
"Sakuya!" exclaims Tenchi. He shakes her, and she returns from her reverie. She begs his forgiveness. Tenchi has his hand out. She almost takes it, but then runs from his apartment.
Tenchi doesn't know what to make of this.
Meanwhile, Nobuyuki, briefcase and carrying tube strapped to his head, is fording the lake outside his house. Along the way, he encounters a rope, which when pulled, causes wooden slats to knock against each other. Hearing it, the Guardians raise armaments from the house and once again prevent Nobuyuki from enjoying a quiet meal at home.
Ayeka hears the blast from inside, where she and Tenchi's grandfather are eating. She's pleased that her booby-traps are keeping people out.
Sasami is still wondering about Yuugi. She remembers Yuugi's parting words to her. Yuugi is also thinking about this. She summons Tsugaru and Matori. She issues some command (I don't know what) and begins to laugh a big laugh, louder than ever before. The crystals behind her begin to grow.
Giant crystals sprout out of Tokyo Bay. (I think it's Tokyo, anyway.) Several other places around the area also have giant crystals grow out of them.
In his apartment, a frowning Tenchi contemplates the picture of him and Sakuya.
And what of Sakuya herself? She sits in the dark of her sparse room. There's a school uniform hung up on the wall, a bed, and a phone. But no other furniture. The camera lies on the bed. On the floor are strewn the pictures of the days events. Sakuya sits on the floor, leaning against the wall, holding herself. "My house... My family... My inheritence..." she says. "Why don't I have any memories of these things? Why don't I remember anything before I met Tenchi?"
She gives a cry, pitches forward. She lies, weeping, curled on the floor. Her face lies just above a picture of Tenchi's smiling face. "Tenchi!" she wails. "Help me, Tenchi! Help me!"
I would like to thank Junji for helping me immeasurably with understanding this episode. This synopsis could simply not have been written without him.
I'd also like to thank my brother who has been watching this with me, and Kevin Campbell, who quite frankly hasn't been any help at all, but he's been entertaining.
I am the keeper of Gummi Wisdom!
Email address: gee@math.berkeley.edu