Mutsumi Sidepanel
Mutsumi Otohime (Otohime Mutsumi) is a very gentle, very frail, clumsy and soft-spoken 21 year old girl
who lives in Okinawa. Keitaro and Naru meet her while taking some time off for a brief vacation after
flunking their entrance exams. (In the anime, Keitaro has a brief and near-fatal encounter with her on his way to the entrance exam.)
Like Keitaro and Naru, Mutsumi had just flunked her entrance exam for Tokyo U, and was also taking a trip to
get a hold of herself again. And like Keitaro, she too is a third year Ronin.
The young Mutsumi played matchmaker to Naru and Keitaro after it became clear that
Naru wanted to go to Tokyo University with Keitaro. She deliberately lost a game of Janken
(rock-paper-scissors) which was to decide who out of Naru and Mutsumi would become Keitaro's wife.
She then made a promise with Naru that both she and Naru would later go to Tokyo University, so that
Naru would remember the promise (she was too young to be able to remember when Keitaro made the promise).
Despite being clumsy in small things and anemic, Mutsumi generally has good luck when it comes to life-changing
matters and always seems to come out all right, even if she gets a few bruises along the way.
Even more than Keitaro, Mutsumi has the tendency to fall down, run into things, and generally get
into injurous situations while recovering quite quickly. She also frequently has near-death experiences.
Her outlook on life is somewhat disconnected with reality, a point reinforced by her worldly
goods consisting of watermelons, her test study techniques consisting of random chance guessing,
and her almost unrealistically optimistic outlook on life. As something of a counterbalance to her
inability to do things anyone could do, she has a number of unusual qualities.
She can speak "turtlese" (though she claims she can't), and her guessing method for test taking,
involving the sides of a pencil, actually got her through the Tokyo U entrance exams.
Her surname, Otohime, comes from the legend of Urashima Taro, where Otohime is the beautiful daughter
of the Sea King and the eventual wife of Urashima. Otohime first appears in the legend as
a beautiful five colored sea turtle, providing the basis for Mutsumi's association with supernatural turtles.
Her character design was supposedly modelled on Aeris of Final Fantasy fame.
The portrayal of the Naru/Keitaro/Mutsumi relationship is somewhat different and more bluntly depicted in the anime.
She gave Narusegawa her Liddo-kun doll when she left Hinata when she was young.
It's a strange way how things turn out. If you were to put Keitaro and Mutsumi face to face, it'd almost be
like putting a mirror in their face. As Naru pointed out once, Mutsumi is practically a female version
of Keitaro. Like he, she's generally good natured, if clumsy and funny at times, and having a lot of Keitaro's habits.
Also like Keitaro, she seems to have made a childhood promise to someone to get into Tokyo University...and again
like Keitaro, she's a two-time Ronin, though not because she has trouble with the test persay. She could easily pass...
if she didn't faint the day of the test...or forget to write her name on the thing...you get the problem.
Her big failing is her tendency to choke when it really counts. She's anemic and prone
to fainting (the first time she and Keitaro met, they literally ran into each other, and she ended up catatonic for several minutes),
and she forgets things now and then.
Mutsumi has a tendency to kiss friends and acquaintances she happens to run into (friendly ones only, mind you).
She also has a pet turtle named Onsen Tamago (Tama for short), who she eventually gives to the Hinata residents as
a pet. She seems to be able to communicate with it.
.chronicles
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
November 2006
April 2007
May 2007
July 2008
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
February 2011
March 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
November 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
July 2012
October 2012
March 2013
February 2014
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
searching for a thought bubble
dear diary,
"Keitaro-san."
"M- Mutsumi-chan? Konbanwa." Keitaro-san was seated on the bench looking over the lake.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I come here in the park when I think."
"Oh, wow. I come here to think too." I said.
Keitaro-san said that he was working on an autobiography of his professor. I wanted to get some fresh air. I'm writing two reaction papers. They're due four days from now. I'm not worried.
"'looks like it's going to rain." I uttered. After a few seconds, the rain suddenly poured down on us. Keitaro-san and I ran under a shed. "The weather news said it's going to rain." oh yeah. I shouldn't have gone outside, right? But it's okay. I wanted to leave the apartment.
"I didn't know. I thought it was just going to be real cloudy." I wanted to have some company too. "This is some serious rain." Keitaro-san said.
The rain didn't stop. And we found ourselves chatting for hours inside the shed. It's a pleasant surprise that I'd have so much fun just talking to each other. Normally, people would just get bored waiting for the rain to pass. But we didn't. Maybe it also depends to the person you're talking to. Keitaro-san is a fun person to talk to. He's got all this funny stories too. And some weird ones.
I think Keitaro-san also told me that he's been feeling like someone's watching him in the past days. I couldn't really understand that feeling, but I know there's such a thing. What do you call it? Being paranoid? It's not that I think Keitaro-san's being weird, but I believe this is the first time that he's mentioned this feeling. So I think he's telling the very truth.
"You must have it hard, Keitaro-san. How's the work on your book?"
"I'm managing. I just started recently. I think I won't be working on it alone. But that means I get only a portion of payment from my professor. Still I don't think it's bad at all."
"That's nice."
"I don't think this rain's going to let up." he smiled. "Do you want to make a run for it?" he laughed afterwards.
"Sure!"
After leaving the hot bath, it's 7pm in my apartment, and it's still raining, finally I can start writing again, diary. What's amazing is that I exactly know what to do on both papers. Today's been a good and fun day.
stamped at 7:13 PM
- otohime mutsumi
