Marquis de Carabas

"Marquis de Carabas" is the third episode of the first season of FLCL. Its English dub aired on August 7th, 2003 on Adult Swim.
==Synopsis==
Ninamori is one of Naota’s schoolmates. Her father, who happens to be the mayor, has been accused of having an affair with his secretary. Ninamori has also put Naota unwillingly into the lead role of the school play. Naota has even weirder shapes coming out of his head!
==Summary==
The father of Naota's classmate, Eri Ninamori, who is also the mayor of Mabase, is caught up in a scandal involving an alleged separation with her mother over having a mistress. Ninamori is more focused on the class' upcoming play, Puss in Boots, in which she plays the lead opposite Naota, who was voted to play the cat. Naota is unenthusiastic about his casting and skips the day's rehearsal. Upon meeting with Mamimi, she discovers that he now has cat ears growing from his head. Ninamori retreats to a train station to get away from the media circus that has developed outside her home, where Naota finds her. Haruko comes racing down the street, and falls off her Vespa when she swerves to avoid hitting a cat. The Vespa slams into Naota, knocking him into Ninamori and revealing his cat ears to her.
Kamon invites her to spend the night at the Nandaba residence due to the current turmoil at her home, and while in Naota's room, she reveals that she rigged the class votes to have him cast as the cat and herself as the Marquis. The next day, the two get into an argument over the play. After Ninamori angrily reveals Naota's cat ears, he retaliates by revealing her vote rigging. This triggers the emergence of a massive creature from her head, which Haruko and Canti manage to defeat with the help of curry. The class goes through with the play.
==Monologue==
Naota: Kids can’t choose the adults in their lives. They can’t choose their parents. Ninamori’s father is the mayor of Mabase. I don’t really get it, but it must make it tough for her. Of course, that didn’t stop me from ditching the rehearsal after school. Playing a talking cat is really too dumb.
==Music==
* "Instant Music"
* "Sad Sad Kiddie"
* "Runners High"
* "Selfish"
* "Carnival"
* "Stalker"
* "Advice"
* "Yorii Gallop"
* "Little Busters"
* "Ride on Shooting Star"
* "Galop Of The Comedians" by Kabalevsky from The Comedians - Suite, Op. 26
== Credits ==
* Original Concept: GAINAX
* Directors: Kazuya Tsurumaki, Shouji Saeki
* Executive Producers: Toshimichi Ohtsuki, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Hiroyuki Yamaga
* Planning: Hirotaka Takase, Masatoshi Nishizawa, Hiroki Sato
Japanese Cast
*Naota Nandaba: Jun Mizuki
*Haruko Haruhara: Mayumi Shintani
*Mamimi Samejima: Izumi Kasagi
*Kamon Nandaba: Suzuki Matsuo
*Shigekuni Nandaba: Hiroshi Ito
*Eri Ninamori: Mika Itou
*Gaku Manabe: Sho Miyajima
*Masashi Masamune: Kazuhito Suzuki
*Junko Miyaji: Yukari Fukui
*Miyu Miyu: Hideaki Anno (uncredited)
*Secretary: Yuriko Yamaguchi
*Takkun: Jun Mizuki
English Cast
*Naota Nandaba: Barbara Goodson
*Haruko Haruhara: Kari Wahlgren
*Mamimi Samejima: Jennifer Sekiguchi
*Kamon Nandaba: Joe Martin
*Shigekuni Nandaba: Steve Kramer
*Eri Ninamori: Melissa Fahn
*Gaku Manabe: R. Martin Klein
*Masashi Masamune: Steven Blum
*Junko Miyaji: Jessica Straus
*Miyu Miyu: Steven Blum
*Secretary: Jessica Straus
*Takkun: Barbara Goodson
==Gallery==
Marquis De Carabas/Gallery
==Trivia==
*During the scene where Mayor Ninamori's Secretary escapes, the brawl amongst the press has several black-and-white photos of a man's face inserted in place of animated faces. Due to the lower quality of the crowded background, only a few faces are shown between the alternating frames.
**In the book, FLCLick Noise, director Tsurumaki revealed that the man's face is of Kazuhiro Takamura, an animator and director who has worked on several popular anime including Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL, Strike Witches, Gurren Lagann and Queen's Blade.
**More specifically, Tsurumaki revealed that the scene was based on the 19th episode of the anime, Kare Kano, which he directed and Takamura served as an animator. The episode utilizes cut out drawings to animate the characters, while photos of Takamura were used to portray the character, Kouhei Fukuda. Those same images are the ones used in FLCL, albeit with just his head. Twitter post by @bloodyvints
***Notably, the anime was also the debut of voice actresses, Mayumi Shintani, who did the voice of Haruko, and Yukari Fukui, who voiced Miya-Jun.
*When Miyajun explains to the class about cats, in the English dub, she briefly mentions several topics about them then goes on to mention cartoon characters Tom from the American cartoon series, Tom and Jerry and Doraemon from the anime series of the same name.
**In the Japanese version, she simply talks about how cats want to be stroked and babied, as well as noting how a cat begins to purr like a kitten when its neck is stroked.
***Later in the episode, in the English dub, Mamimi says Naota is like Doraemon after finding out about his cat ears underneath his hat, while in the Japanese version she says that he is like "that robot cat", a more subtle reference to Doraemon.
*After Masamune shows Naota a copy of Come On, Mabase and tells him that he found it at a shop in Sakai, Gaku slides in and joins the conversation. 
**In the English dub, Gaku asks if the shop has "Crystal Pepsi" and mentions that its commercial featured music by Van Halen. This is referring to the clear cola soft drink from the early 1990s and the American rock band who permitted their 1992 single "Right Now" to be used in commercials to promote the product.Crystal Pepsi Van Halen Right Now Commercial 1992
**In the Japanese version, Gaku asks if the shop sells Cheerio, a Japanese soft drink. While it can be found in plastic bottles across Japan, the more popular glass bottle version is currently sold in certain parts of Tokyo.
***Several melon flavored Cheerio in glass bottles can be seen in the shop that Kamon stops by to sell his "Come On, Mabase" and then later Ninamori is seen drinking a bottle just before Naota finds her after school.
*It was never made clear how the Medical Mechanica robot came out of Ninamori's head instead of Naota's, though the collision of their heads earlier in the episode is a strong possibility which suggests that N.O. type capabilities can be transferred over from a user to a non-user.
*Marquis de Carabas is named after the cat character from the 16th century fairy tale Puss in Boots.
*Mamimi tells Naota that she was in a play before where she had to reveal that the king has donkey ears. 
**The play that she is referring to is known by several different names such as King Gyeongmun's ear tale in Korea and King Midas and the Donkey Ears in English speaking countries, all with the same story of a person who tries to keeps the king's secret to themselves before finally blurting it out.
*When Junko's car is destroyed by Canti, a figurine of Kenny McCormick from the animated series South Park can be briefly seen flying the air along with parts of her car.
*During the scene where Ninamori eats curry with Naota and his family, Haruko shows off a package of curry called "Little Prince Goes to New York Curry". Later, Naota points out that Ninamori got the mild version, labeled "Little Prince Curry Very Sweet", showing a blue box with a prince from P&P.
**The curry packages are based off a brand of mild curry for young children by S&B Foods called "Prince Curry" (カレーの王子さま, karee no ouji-sama).
**The "Little Prince Goes to New York" title is a reference to the 1988 comedy film, Coming to America. In Japan, the film was titled 星の王子さまニューヨークへ行く (Hoshi no ōji-sama nyūyōku e iku, The Little Prince Goes to New York)
*After Naota complains about the spice level for the curry he and the others ate, in the Japanese version, Haruko asks if he would prefer a Mont Blanc-flavored curry, with Mont Blanc referring to a type of French dessert made from pureed chestnuts and is quite popular in Japan.
**In the English dub, Haruko asks if he wants chocolate icing on his curry instead.
*The silver pouch drink that Naota and Ninamori consume in his bedroom is a real life health supplement called Weider In-Jelly by Morinaga. Specifically the pouch that they have is the multivitamin version.
*Near the end of the episode, Miya-Jun is shown standing backstage during the school play, with her forehead wrapped in bandages, wearing an eyepatch and her right arm in a cast. This is a reference to the character Rei Ayanami from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.
**The Evangelion franchise was created by Hideaki Anno who voiced Miyu Miyu and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki who also directed the first season of FLCL.
**Megumi Hayashibara who voiced Rei in the Japanese version of Evangelion also voiced Haruko Haruhara in FLCL Progressive.
**Additionally, Yuriko Yamaguchi, who voices Mayor Ninamori's secretary was also involved with Evangelion, voicing the character Ritsuko Akagi.
*In the preview for the next episode, Haruko talks about "Maeda-san" from Hiroshima and how he quit the Kuma high school baseball team due to his looks, but was then called back to play for his senior year. She then mentions "Okoshi" and how he had quit playing for Waseda but is now playing for Daiye.
**"Maeda-san" is in reference to baseball player, Tomonori Maeda, who played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp from 1990 to 2013. He had attended Kumamoto Technical High, where he played on the baseball team before quitting, due to bullying (with Haruko implying that the bullying was due to his good looks).
**"Okoshi" is in reference to Motoi Okoshi, a baseball player who played in college at Waseda University but quit after they won the championship in 1990, likely due to bullying. He eventually went on to play professionally for the Fukuoka Daiye Hawks.
***In the English dub, Haruko talks about how "Ichiro" came to America to meet Tommy Lasorda after his second year as a professional baseball player in Japan. But after a few rounds, he was told that he would have to develop bigger arms if he wanted to play professionally in America.
****"Ichiro" refers to Ichiro Suzuki, who spent the majority of his baseball career in the U.S. playing for the Seattle Mariners.
****Tommy Lasorda was the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1976 to 1996.
==References==
Category:Episodes
Category:FLCL