Mamimi Samejima

Mamimi Samejima (サメジマ・マミ美?, Samejima Mamimi) is a high school truant and Tasuku's ex-girlfriend. She is a lonely and depressed chain-smoker, and a pyromaniac. She adopts several pets and names them all "Ta-kun" (タッくん, Takkun) as a replacement for Naota's brother, including Naota himself, but later grows uninterested when Naota exhibits independence. Her name is written in Katakana in the manga panel scene, which suggests she may not be entirely Japanese.
==Profile==
Mamimi is Tasuku's ex-girlfriend, though she has seemingly begun some sort of relationship with Naota since his brother left Japan. A truant, smoking, pyromaniacal 17-year-old high school student, she spends most of her time loitering under Mabase's largest bridge. She is often seen with a camera, photography being her principal hobby and greatest talent, and near-constantly smokes cigarettes with the words "Never Knows Best" written on them. In the third episode, it is hinted that her parents are separated or gone, suggesting that she is either homeless or leaves her home to get away from something. She gets bullied by her peers and doesn't appear to have any friends. It is also heavily implied that she's poor as she had asked for day-old bread from the Nandaba Bakery in the first episode. At the end of the sixth episode, it is explained by Naota through an epilogue that she left Mabase to become a photographer, and this is shown through the picture she took of Naota at the end of the climax, briefly being shown in a magazine.
==Personality==
Mamimi is a pyromaniac and loner who has the peculiar tendency to name people and things "Ta-kun" (sometimes spelled "Takkun"), after her personal nickname for Naota's brother and Naota himself. It is possible she does this because she is trying to replace the relationship and feelings she had with her ex-boyfriend, Tasuku. She holds a very quixotically weak grip on the difference between fantasy and reality. For example, she believes Canti to be the manifestation of Cantido, the Fire Starter video game god to whom she burns things as sacrifices. She also emanates an aura of benign vapidness that causes much of the cast to look upon her with disdain. Her speech suggests stupidity and her actions naïveté, such as when she believes (and continues to believe) that "Canti-sama" is a god based on the simple fact that he has wings. Mamimi can be seen as lacking control over her life or willpower, hence the near-constant smoking and child-like reliance on others, whether it's Naota or his brother, Tasuku. In fact, Mamimi can be exceedingly destructive - although only when nobody is watching. She is hinted at being the cause of many fires started under mysterious circumstances that become part of Mabase's rumor mill. Naota confirms this by connecting her love of Fire Starter and Cantido, sacrifices, and smoking to the burning down of her old school years ago. That was also the incident that started her obsession with Tasuku, who she recalls saving her in a very romanticized fashion.
Mamimi often has a very difficult time accepting changes in her life such as when she heard about Tasuku's American girlfriend and as a result had a mental breakdown which she called an "overflow". Another example is when Naota began to develop into his own person, and she responded by becoming aloof around him. When Naota cut ties with Mamimi her mental health further deteriorated as Mamimi went after people on her "revenge list" by going after the cellphones and then the vehicles of everyone who ever picked on her. She did this by feeding them to the terminal core who she adopted as a "pet" not realizing it was merely using her and in her unstable state of mind, Mamimi could not fully grasp the repercussions of her foolish deeds as the core went out of control. After Atomsk left earth, Mamimi finally realized Tasuku was never coming back for her, and she just needed to move on with her life, which is why she left Mabase but not before she made amends with Natoa by calling him by his real name, showing her remorse of how she acted.
==Appearance==
Mamimi has medium-length, reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and full, pouty lips. She seems to be always wearing her school uniform, but often loses her shoes when she gets bullied and is forced to go around barefoot. She carries around a light blue bag with a white cross on it.
==Items==
Mamimi's cameras are a white Olympus XA2 and an Olympus OM-2, the two she keeps (or doesn't lose) throughout the whole series. The Olympus XA2 was a 35 mm film scale-focus camera.The XA2 was renowned as one of the smallest rangefinder cameras ever made sporting a 35mm f3.5 built-in lens with automatic shutter features. Her Olympus OM-2 single lens reflex has an expanded set of exposure controls over the XA2 while still featuring an automatic shutter mode and one of the best (if not the best) exposure meters of that era. The OM-2 is speculated to be outfitted with G.Zuiko 50mm f1.8 lens.
Her second favorite possession would seem to be the handheld game console she uses to play the Firestarter video game. However, she is only shown using it in the second episode and it is not seen again until it falls out of her pocket at a convenient time, confirming that she set her old school on fire to Naota. Presumably, she let Naota keep it instead of taking it back because she "didn't need it anymore".
A more precious object was her cell phone, which has Tasuku's phone number in it. She uses it to call Naota sometimes, but what she really wants is for Tasuku to call her. This is shown during episode 6 when she at first stops the Terminal Core from eating the phone but seems to realize that Tasuku will never call her and lets the robot eat it.
==Relations==
=== Naota Nandaba ===
To Mamimi, Naota was little more than a plaything for her sexual frustrations and to use as a stand-in for his older brother. Usually, he finds her to be immature and foolish and can be quite harsh to her. Despite this, he develops a crush on her, but is confused about how to deal with it. Mamimi did not like it when Naota started stepping out of his brother's shadow and began finding himself; she became cold and indifferent around him as he no longer reminded her of her ex-boyfriend. When he finally realizes that Mamimi will never return his feelings and frankly had enough of all her nonsense, their relationship comes to a messy end. Without Naota in her life she became even more mentally unstable. In an epilogue after the events of the sixth episode, Mamimi showed how sorry she was when she finally called Naota by his real name and was able to end things on good terms when she left Mabase to become a professional photographer.
In the novelization of "Brittle Bullet", it's explained that is explained as to why Mamimi did not reciprocate Naota's feelings: despite seeing Haruko and Naota getting closer, it was not jealousy that she was feeling in order to reject him. Rather, seeing Naota hit the satellite out into orbit at the end of "Full Swing" made her believe that Naota was acting more manly. Yet, despite this act improving her perception of him, it also made her no longer want him, as she believed that a man could easily throw her away. In the end, she only wanted a substitute Takkun instead of a manly Naota.
=== Haruko Haruhara ===
Mamimi and Haruko do not have much in the ways of interaction though in the brief moments they are together they appear to be friendly towards one another, but as Naota's personality changes because of Haruko, Mamimi finds herself liking him less and rejecting him more. While Mamimi never shows any sign of jealousy or anger towards Haruko directly, she does indicate some jealousness towards Haruko for changing Naota in the fifth episode.
=== Canti ===
Mamimi is convinced that Canti is a god. She calls him "Canti-sama" after "The Lord of Black Flames" in a video game she plays, leading to the rest of the cast calling him by this title throughout the rest of the series.
=== Shigekuni Nandaba ===
While not much is known about their relationship in the anime it can be implied that Shigekuni did not approve of the relationship between Mamimi and Tasuku and as a result grew to dislike her, with the former not being fond of him either. Despite this, in the novels it is stated by Naota that his grandfather's hatred of Mamimi stemmed from jealousy. Shigekuni is a big fan of baseball and was thrilled to see his eldest grandson not only share the same passion but also be naturally talented in the sport. However, once Mamimi came into the picture he feared that she would take Tasuku away from him and end up letting his talent go to waste. 
In the novelization of "Fire Starter", upon seeing Mamimi in the yard with Naota and Haruko, he decides to mock her by bragging about the new clothes that Tasuku had sent him from America, knowing that she had not received any letter or phone calls from him. After she takes a picture of Canti, he yells at her and claims that she has no right to take pictures of the Nandaba's robot, before threating to call the police on her.
=== Tasuku Nandaba ===
Mamimi first met Tasuku when he saved her during the burning of their school, an event later revealed to be caused by Mamimi herself. The eldest Nandaba brother has clearly had the largest impact on Mamimi from the start of FLCL. She believes herself to be his girlfriend, or at the very least his ex-girlfriend and is clearly obsessed with him. From nicknaming everything "Ta-kun" to her closeness to Naota, Tasuku's leaving is the center of her world. She spends a majority of the series trying to replace him through intimacy with Naota, sacrifices and finding and naming pets. After learning he has an American girlfriend, she went into emotional distress then collapsed which she referred to as "overflow". By the sixth episode, Mamimi realized Tasuku was never going to call or come back for her as she let the terminal core eat her cellphone which had his number on it and later, she departed from Mabase seemingly having moved on from him.
Despite this however, Mamimi had actually kept in contact with Tasuku in the manga and is stated to have remained in contact with him via her phone in an early proposal document in The FLCL Archives.
=== Takkun ===
Takkun is a stray cat that Mamimi took everywhere with her. Since she isn't allowed to keep pets at home, Mamimi kept him under the Mabase bridge where she hangs out. He shares his name with several other things that Mamimi tried filling the void with as a result Tasuku leaving. At first the cat seemed to be fond of her, but eventually left her when he found a female white cat to be his mate. It's possible that he left her because she didn't feed him as she had asked Naota if he had any cat food on him in the second episode, and knowing she asked for day-old bread from the Nandaba Bakery then it's very likely she couldn't afford to get him actual cat food.
In the novelization of "FLCLimax", as Mamimi searched the riverbed for Takkun, it was revealed that Eri Ninamori was now taking care of the cat and vowed that the high schooler will never find him. Ninamori then explains that during the previous week, she had found Takkun freezing in the rain. She had noted that Takkun had injured one of his legs, his skinny frame was convulsing and that he was too weak to even meow. After realizing that the cat was the one that Mamimi had been carrying around with her, she became angry that the high schooler would be that careless to let a pet suffer like that. As she continued to watch Mamimi search in the rain for Takkun, Ninamori whispered to herself that Mamimi will never find the cat, because it is now at the Ninamori residence and that she should learn to do things properly if she ever gets a pet again. Later in the novel, Mamimi confirmed that she wanted to adopt him but could not due to where her family lived. After searching in the rain for him for over two hours, she eventually gave up, hoping that someone would have adopted him, before finally realizing that she is all alone now.
==Gallery==
Main: Mamimi Samejima/Gallery
==Trivia==
*Mamimi’s English voice actor, Stephanie Sheh, is famous for her dubbing career, most notably for being the English voice actor of Hinata Hyūga in the Naruto series.
*The band Copneconic released an EP in 2015 titled "Never Knows Best", which got its title from Mamimi's cigarettes and uses her likeness in its art.
*According to a production sheet, Mamimi's cigarettes are modeled after Lucky Strike cigarettes
* Despite Mamimi finally having called Naota by his real name in "FLCLimax", she actually did refer to him by his real name one other time, that being in "Fooly Cooly" where she explains to Haruko that he isn't called "Taro-kun" but rather Naota but that she also calls him "Ta-kun" for short.
*In The FLCL Archives, it is stated in one of the original project outline pages that the cigarettes Mamimi had been smoking actually belong to Tasuku.
**In another concept page, Mamimi was originally going to have a different personality altogether, being referred to as "the kind of kid who used to get bullied and now poses as a jock".
**Additionally, it is stated that she was originally going to set fires as a way to cope with stress.
**She was also initially going to be 16 years old.
**Mamimi was also at some point going to quit school altogether after an altercation with one of her teachers.
**It is suggested that Mamimi may have had some sort of connection to N.O. early in development as it's stated that N.O. phenomenon also occurs in her midst, this idea was ultimately scrapped. 
**One of Mamimi's cameras was originally going to be a Konica BM. 
***While it is never stated in the series, an early characterization suggests Mamimi is a fan of Hiromi Toshikawa who went under the pen name "Hiromix". Toshikawa being famous for a photo diary and self-portraits, her camera of choice was the Konica BM.
****In the same characterization page it is stated that Mamimi doesn't take self-nudes which is also something that Hiromix is known for.
* There was likely not going to be mention or hint that Mamimi was currently being bullied as in an early script for Fire Starter, Mamimi reveals that years ago there was a large fire in Mabase that burned down the house of a classmate who was bullying her and states, "I 'used to' get bullied".
* The idea that Mamimi would burn down the houses of those who bullied her would eventually be reused in the novels.
* It's also stated during an early draft for Fooly Cooly that she was actually getting her cigarettes from Naota as he would go through his brother's desk drawer to find any for her sake.
* Within the same draft the concept of “overflowing” is further expanded upon and is suggested that it originally going to be more sexually oriented compared to how it was depicted in the final draft, where it’s more to do with her overwhelming emotions.
*She cameos in the FLCL Progressive ending cinematic, one being of her viewing the shooting stars and the other being in a panning shot with other characters.
* She can be briefly seen in the last episode of FLCL Alternative when Haruko and her Vespa travel through the portal. The scenes include her looking at Haruko in horror as she kisses Naota and later, looking at Naota while offering him a drink from her can of juice from the ending scene of "Fooly Cooly", followed by her looking in horror as Naota is eaten by the robot in "Fire Starter".
*Two images of Mamimi can be briefly seen in FLCL: Shoegaze as Masaki sees the massive bird perched on the tower: One of the images is of her with a cigarette from "Fooly Cooly" and the other is of her looking up to the sky after seeing Canti in "Fire Starter". 
** Another cameo featuring her hugging Naota from the opening scene of "Fooly Cooly" can be seen after Masaki throws the bomb out of the tower window
**In the third episode, she is briefly shown sitting with Naota, who is in his baseball uniform, by the river from "Full Swing”
*According to the novels, instead of submitting a picture of Naota holding Haruko’s guitar to a photo contest she sent in a completely different picture, that being of Naota being run over by Haruko’s Vespa, she would also decide to leave Mabase after winning the contest.
**Furthermore, she would title it “Goodbye Naota” instead of “Fooly Cooly”, marking the only time she ever called him by his real name.
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:FLCL
Category:Principal Characters