Eri Ninamori

Eri Ninamori (ニナモリ・エリ?, Ninamori Eri) is the daughter of the mayor of Mabase and the president of Naota's sixth grade class. Like Naota she is obsessed with acting grown-up, but she often loses her composure when angry or excited. Ninamori hides her frustration with her father's sex scandal, and rigs an election for the school play so that she gets the lead role while Naota gets cast opposite her, hinting that she has a crush on him.
==Debut==
Ninamori debuts in episode one of FLCL where she questions Naota about his new bandage, drawing the attention of the other classmates present.
==Profile==
Eri Ninamori, 12, is Naota's classmate. In the series, she is referred to as 'Ninamori,' her family name. She is the daughter of the mayor of Mabase and is class president. Ninamori has N.O. powers as well, though they only manifest once when Naota hit his head on hers. In this instance, Naota's third robot, which expresses at first as "cat ears", transfers to her instantly when the Medical Mechanica factory's siren blows. In the manga, an octopus-like robot comes forth, before running away with Naota, and appears very little after that until it helps her save Naota from an angered Haruko.
==Personality==
Ninamori projects a proper, even slightly stuck-up personality, and conceals personal information to an almost obsessive degree; she does not even let her classmates know that she needs corrective lenses, instead wearing contacts while at school. Even with her class president status, however, Ninamori isn't above breaking the rules to get what she wants. She rigs the voting during the casting for the school play in order to get the lead role and have Naota cast opposite her, which hints at her crush on Naota. Other hints are her expressed dislike of Mamimi and Haruko, letting him see her wearing glasses, and a final scene with Naota by a vending machine that mirrors Mamimi and Naota's early-series interactions. 
Ninamori is also highly intelligent, if a little jaded. Much like Naota, Ninamori attempts to act mature, and although her parents' problems trouble her deeply, she refuses to admit it until near the end of the series. During the final episode, during gym practice, she tells her classmates Masashi Masamune and Gaku Manabe that she had finally talked to her parents, letting them see her cry, and then performs an impressive high jump which her classmates and teacher applaud - a possible representation of how Ninamori has achieved real emotional maturity, something which Naota had yet to accomplish.
In the novel, Naota refers to her being special, which she also proudly acknowledges. While originally thinking she is specially because of her height, her beauty and style, or her willingness to touch a lizard unlike the other girls, in the end, both seem to acknowledge that she is special only because of her father being the mayor and the family's wealth. As such, he then stated that Ninamori has a "princess" persona, which is further emphasized when she is acting as class president. Naota mentions that she tends to meddle into her classmates' lives and is the first to offer her help even when no one asked for it as well as seek the approval of their teacher. He also mentions that she treats him with a strange sense of comradery, due to the both of them having high grades.
==Appearance==
Ninamori is a bit tall for her age, tall enough that Naota's pajamas are a little short for her. In the novel, she is noted to be the tallest girl in the 6th grade. It also noted that she is aware of her beauty and height, going so far as to wear shoes and sandals with tall heels to further enhance her height during her the weekend. She has dark, blue-green eyes and purple hair. For the first half of the series, she wears her hair long and straight. At the end of the third episode, it is cut to chin-length, and she styles it with accessories or in short pigtails for the rest of the series. In her last scene in the final episode, her hair has grown longer and she wears it in braids. 
In Marquis de Carabas, she wore red, plastic frame eyeglasses while in Naota's room.
Ninamori wears different clothes in all of her appearances and has many outfits throughout the series.
==Items==
Ninamori's glasses are her most significant possession. Although she is only shown wearing them in episode 3, they represent her true self and the only person she allows to see her wearing them is Naota. At the end of the episode, when the school play is about to start, he sees her wearing glasses on stage, but she pokes her finger through the frames to show they have no lenses. These fake glasses are not the same as the ones she wore earlier in the episode, which have real lenses.
In the novelization of "Brittle Bullet", she further explains why she wore fake glasses during the play. Ninamori mentions that she normally wears contact lenses in order to appear like an adult, so wearing fake glasses while onstage allowed her to show her true face, that of a young child. Though after the play, she then realized that she did not need to use fake glasses to prove she is still a child.
==Relations==
===Naota===
Ninamori seems to have a crush on Naota, first indicated by playful teasing and jealousy towards Mamimi. In the third episode, she goes so far as to rig the votes just to have him cast as her co-star in the class play, and even confides the secret to him when they are alone. She feels a meaningful connection to him, noticing their shared distaste for the fake maturity that adults emulate throughout the series, but mistakenly attributes his reason for developing this view. This mistake is the reason she selected him and rigged his votes, as the character he will play displays Ninamori's view. She compares him directly to his character when opening up to him via the quote, "He hides who he really is and pretends to be someone else forever, but in time becomes that person, so his lie becomes the truth, see? He transcends the mask. Well, don't you get it? That's how he finds happiness." However, Naota can't understand that reasoning because he didn't develop his worldview that way. While Ninamori gained it from the chaos that is pretending to be the successful daughter of a mayor who cheats on his wife, Naota simply hit a wall with maturity that created a disdain for people who fake what he desires. The misunderstanding results in a break in the romantic tension between them and later culminates in their fight as their respective immaturity clashes. Notwithstanding, she values the understanding they have and gains a better grasp of her own struggles because of him. Naota, meanwhile, treats her with a bit more respect than he does Mamimi or Haruko, sympathizing with her family issues and calling her "very grown up" at one point. They do not take any further steps toward romance, however, until the final episode.
===Haruko===
Ninamori does not meet Haruko until the third episode, and her first impression of her is a strongly negative one. However, although it's clear Ninamori has some jealousy of her relationship with Naota, she doesn't do or say much about it later.
===Mamimi===
Ninamori does not interact with Mamimi at all, but from hearing about her being called "Naota's wife" and seeing them together, she is quick to judge her as a ditzy airhead. Her opinion of Mamimi seems to change slightly when she notices how Naota's closeness with Haruko is hurting her.
In the novelization of "FLCLimax", she became angry at the high schooler after finding Takkun out in the rain by himself, suffering from a leg injury and malnourishment. After seeing Mamimi struggling to find cat in the riverbed the following week, Ninamori tells herself that Mamimi will never find the cat now, as she is taking care of him at the Ninamori residence and that Mamimi should learn to be more responsible if she ever plans to get a pet again.
===Masashi and Gaku===
Gaku and Masashi are probably the closest friends Ninamori has besides Naota. They call her "Ninamo", she hangs out with them during and after school, and even gets a part-time job making deliveries with them in the fifth episode. By the end of the final episode, they start showing signs of being attracted to her, though she still seems more interested in Naota.
===Kamon===
While not discussed as much in the anime, in the novel, she is initially disgusted with him after he had given her a copy of Come On Mabase. Referring to him as a shady-looking middle aged man, she is disgusted by what he wrote about her family and questions why he would give the magazine to someone who is clearly in elementary school in the first place. She is more horrified after finding out that he is Naota's father and that he actually knew who she was when he gave her the issue. During dinner, Kamon insisted that she could stay the night and he would her call her parents to let them know, but she told him that her and her parents live separate lives, so there would be no need for him to do that.
As she bathed at the Nandabra residence later that night, he suddenly spoke to her from a nearby glass partition, forcing her to quickly cover her chest with her forearm (in the novel, she further noted that he was actually peeking in and she could feel him scanning her nude body with his eyes). He asked if she resented him for writing the exposé on her family. Despite viewing Kamon as a creepy pervert, she does express her gratitude towards him, as his exposé got rid of her father's secretary. He then praised her for acting like an adult and handed her a shower hat.
===Mayor Ninamori's Secretary===
Although she is only briefly shown during "Marquis de Carabas", the dynamic between Ninamori and her father's secretary is civil yet tense, as Eri is aware that the secretary is having a relationship with her father. In the novelization, she seems to be more resentful at the secretary compared to the anime, fully blaming the woman for her parent's relationship falling apart. 
After their affair is made public, the secretary quickly flees town, with Ninamori being described as having hatred in her heart as she watched the woman make her escape. It also noted that she wanted to be the one to get the secretary kicked out as her way of revenge rather than seeing her flee in an act of cowardice, before finally calling her a "perfumed hag".
===Mayor Ninamori (Father) and Mother===
Ninamori wants her parents to stay together desperately, to the point of rigging a play's election so she'll be the lead in an attempt to force them to see it together for her sake. In the novel, she fondly remembered the times that her parents were in love and how her father would constantly thank her mother for supporting him as he struggled to become mayor of Mabase. She then remembered the day when her father explained that despite still caring for each other, he and her mother will live in separate houses now because of the fuss it would cause if they had a public divorce and that it was "an adult thing". Seeing the secretary standing right next to her father as he tried to appease Eri made her even more upset.
In "FLCLimax", during gym practice, she tells her classmates Masashi Masamune and Gaku Manabe that she had finally talked to her parents the day before the play, and let them see her cry as she told them how she truly felt. She further noted that in the moment, she had stopped acting like an adult and returned to just being a child, hoping that Naota would learn to do the same.
==Abilities and Powers==
Ninamori is a typical girl until the Medical Mechanica factory's siren goes off in episode three. Suddenly, the cat-like ears signaling Naota's N.O. activity throughout the episode transfer over to her head and a robot partially emerges from it. While stuck in her head, it has complete control over her and makes her eyes glow red. She begins kicking Naota and Canti with rapid precision, and fighting Haruko when she attacks. In this state, her legs are strong enough to fend off blows from Haruko's guitar and send people flying on impact.
==Story==
Aside from becoming part of the Masamune delivery service, asking questions and hanging out with Naota on some occasions, Ninamori's character arc takes place entirely in Marquis de Carabas.
==Gallery==
Ninamori/Gallery
==Trivia==
*In an interview with director Tsurumaki, he mentioned how Ninamori's appearance changes with every scene she's in, saying that Nobutoshi Ogura favored her design and had fun altering it in subsequent episodes.
*In FLCLick Noise, character designer Sadamoto mentioned that Ninarmori was inspired by Kazue Fukiishi, a gravure idol and actress. Tsurumaki further explained that inspiration came after seeing her throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Kintetsu Buffaloes game, noting that she had just started her acting career and her father was also a player on the team.
*She can be briefly seen twice during the ending credits of FLCL Progressive: a black and white line image of her as an adult with shorter hair and hairclips similar to her design in "FLCLimax" and an image of her next to Naota and Kitsurubami, with long hair and wearing glasses, a scarf and trenchcoat.
*In the final episode of FLCL Alternative, an image of Naota holding onto her as Haruko tries to fight the spider robot that spawned from her head in "Marquis de Carabas" is briefly seen as Haruko and her Vespa are being transported.
*In the final episode of FLCL: Shoegaze, an image of her standing on the stage with her glasses from the end of "Marquis de Carabas" is briefly seen as the pink bird transform and begins to fly off.
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:FLCL