Episode 36

**Clash! Gash VS Naomi**(激突! ガッシュVSナオミちゃん, *Gekitotsu! Gasshu tai Naomi-chan*) is the 36th episode of the Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Anime. This episode first aired in Japan on December 14, 2003.

## Overview

Gash finds himself tormented by nightmares involving Naomi on the night before he plans to challenge her to a duel at the park. At the same time, Kiyomaro ends up going to the Mochinoki Zoo along with some of his friends to visit the newsworthy lion exhibit.

## Plot

Gash experiences an extremely vivid nightmare during the night about Naomi which soon leads to him waking up panicked and in cold sweat from the dream. Regardless of how many times he tries to calm himself down and sleep again, Gash continuously finds himself tormented by these dreams. Kiyomaro also ends up being unable to sleep no matter how many times he tries to get Gash to stop with the commotion during the night.

Their physical exhaustion from the lack of sleep becomes evident to Hana when the two of them sit down to join her, as well as Umagon, for breakfast. While at the table, she asks Kiyomaro about his plans for the day considering the fact that it's the weekend. When Kiyomaro turns on the TV to try and get some ideas, he sees that the local zoo has a brand new exhibit featuring the massive and fearsome African lion, Gabrio. Interested in going, Kiyomaro asks Gash if he'd like to go to the zoo that afternoon with him to see the lion. Gash however turns down Kiyomaro's offer saying that he has other plans that afternoon but suggests that he should go with Umagon instead.

After breakfast, Gash leaves the table and Umagon ends up following him from behind. Outside, Gash orders Umagon to not follow him because he has an important showdown waiting for him. While not specific on what awaits him, he makes a promise to Umagon saying he will return victorious and then soon quickly heads out. This "showdown" is soon revealed to be between him and Naomi at the park where he proposes a set of challenges for the two of them to face off in. Although Naomi remains confident in the fact that Gash couldn't even beat her at even one of these "battles" against her, Gash feels otherwise and adds that if he wins he wants her to stop picking on him.

Back home, Kiyomaro sits outside with Umagon and wonders where exactly Gash had ran off to. He ends up asking Umagon this question and while Umagon tries to answer this, Kiyomaro ends up laughing this off due to the fact he can't actually understand what he's saying. While Umagon tries to attack Kiyomaro for this, Suzume happens to arrive around the same witnessing the ongoing commotion. When asked about why she was visiting, she pulls out a flyer featuring Gabrio and says she was wondering if he and Gash would be interested in going to the zoo with her. When she notices Gash's absence, she asks Kiyomaro about his whereabouts but Kiyomaro finds himself not really knowing the answer either. At the same time while Kiyomaro and Suzume have been talking, Gash finds himself already struggling to beat Naomi during their first challenge which involves a race between them. Gash just barely keeps himself ahead of Naomi while she's just behind him in her toy car until suddenly she swerves off to the side and crashes. When Gash laughs about this, Naomi becomes enraged hearing him laugh at her which causes her to run him down with her toy car then declare this first match a victory for her.

When Kiyomaro, Suzume, and Umagon arrive just outside the zoo, they find themselves stopped by Yamanaka and Iwashima who talk among themselves about how it appears to them that Kiyomaro and Suzume are on a date. Although Kiyomaro tries to disprove this by using Umagon's presence with them as an excuse, it fails to convince the duo otherwise. When they ask him about why Gash isn't with them, Kiyomaro once again tries to wonder what Gash could be up to in that moment. Back at the park, Gash is seen struggling to get past Naomi on their second challenge which involves them climbing to the top of the playground's jungle gym structure. While Naomi remains cool and confident as she prevents Gash from trying to climb past her, she finds herself engulfed with rage when Gash ends up casually bringing up the fact that from his angle he's able to see underneath her dress overalls. This leads to Naomi taking Gash down to the ground before returning back onto the structure to declare this her second victory.

Meanwhile, Kiyomaro finds himself marveling at the sheer amount of people that have come to the zoo to see the lion. Just as he mentions to his group that they should all stick together, he turns around and sees that both Suzume and Umagon are missing as well as Iwashima and Yamanaka explaining that they had only taken their eyes off them for just a moment before they disappeared. In Suzume and Umagon's perspectives, the pair ends up wandering off far from the crowds and arrive at the backside of a building where they hear something bang on the door from the other side of it. The lock that was on the door ends up breaking off and the two of them investigate the building thinking that they'll be able to find the lion inside.

At the park, Gash and Naomi prepare to start their last challenge with Naomi once again appearing confident and Gash anxious to claim a victory for himself. When Gash charges towards Naomi, he ends up falling for an elaborate trap that Naomi had set up which involved her digging a steep pit just in front of her for him to fall into. After Gash realizes this was a trap, he looks up and sees Naomi at the surface now holding the Vulcan 300 captive in her hands. She would then go on to tie it at the end of a rope and have it dangle in the wind on top of the park's tall clock structure. Just as she finishes tying the rope in place, she overhears some of the other kids who had been witnessing the park's events all day speculate on her real feelings towards Gash. After thinking about it for a moment, she would then go on to suggest that they should leave Gash behind and go play by the hills. Some time later however just as Gash manages to get out of the pit, he overhears some of Naomi's friends come running back to the park. It is then that Gash learns from them that something had happened to Naomi and they need his help with this situation.

Back at the zoo, Kiyomaro and his friends try their best to continue their search for Suzume and Umagon despite the sea of people all around them by the lion exhibit. Soon enough, Kiyomaro ends up finding the two of them inside of the enclosure. When asking Suzume about what they're doing inside the enclosure, he ends up learning instead that Suzume and Umagon don't realize they're in the exhibit itself and that they don't see any lion in there. Just then, a live emergency announcement was made explaining that Gabrio had escaped the zoo and everyone was ordered to evacuate the zoo immediately. While this is going on, Gash learns from one of Naomi's friends that when she had attempted to catch and chase a lizard, she ended up falling off the edge of the hill they were on. When Gash takes a look at where Naomi had fallen, he sees that she appears to be unharmed and sitting alone on the edge of the rocky cliff but the cliff itself is too steep for anyone to climb down to rescue her. As Gash and the other kids try and think of a way they can help her, one of the kids spots a cave behind a tree that's close to where Naomi is. Thinking that the cave can lead to somewhere, they all try and tell Naomi to go through it and see where it takes her.

Unexpectedly to them however, they see Gabrio come out from the cave and they all try to warn her about this. Although Naomi doesn't take this seriously at first, when she looks over to her side and sees that the lion is real, she immediately panics and begs for help. While the other kids also begin to react in fear over what will happen, Gash realizes that he could stand a chance against the lion but needs to be able to get down there himself. Just as he starts to climb down, one of the kids out of concern questions if he's really going to attempt to do this and reminds him of the fact that Naomi had constantly picked on him up until then. Although Gash struggles with his feelings about Naomi remembering the different times and ways she had been mean to him, when he hears Naomi's cries for help and how scared she is, he realizes he's determined to do the right thing and save her no matter what. While climbing down, he ends up losing his grip and slips off the edge of the cliff but luckily grabs onto a stray tree branch to stop his fall. Scared that he'll lose his grip and fall, Gash also ends up calling for help too. When Naomi ends up both seeing and hearing that Gash is in trouble and about to fall, she ends up taking matters into her own hands and starts climbing up the cliff at rapid speed. She then manages to grab Gash from the ledge and pull the both of them back to the top of the cliff where the rest of the kids are glad to see that they're alright. While Naomi in the moment tries to play off any fear that she had during the situation, one of the kids smiles thinking about the fact that despite everything else going on, Naomi was genuinely concerned for Gash when she saw that he was in need of help and chose to rescue him from a dangerous fall.

Later that day in the early evening, Kiyomaro and his friends end up watching the latest news broadcast in regards to the incident at the zoo and learn that Gabrio had been safely captured. As they keep watching, they see Gash in the background of a news interview with Naomi. As Naomi answers an interview question about the incident she had earlier with the lion, Gash takes a look at the captured lion and notices a thorn sticking out from his paw that had been hurting him the whole time. When Gash removes it, Gabrio starts to lick his face which catches the attention of the news crew who decide right then that they want to interview Gash instead. Jealous of the attention taken from her and given to Gash, Naomi ends up sabotaging this interview by letting go of the small lizard she had caught and kept in her pocket. When it lands on his face, this causes Gash to react hilariously on camera trying to get it off while it is unknown to him that Kiyomaro and his friends were currently watching this scene unfold.

## Features

### Characters by Appearance

* Gash Bell
* Naomi
* Kiyomaro Takamine
* Umagon
* Hana Takamine
* Suzume Mizuno
* Hiroshi Yamanaka
* Mamoru Iwashima

### Locations

* Mochinoki City
	+ Takamine Residence
		- Kiyomaro's Room

## Manga & Anime Differences

* Hana, Suzume, Yamanaka, and Iwashima make no appearance in the original chapters this episode was based on and events involving him are entirely filler.
	+ Given this, in the manga, Kiyomaro stays home for the day in his room and does not actually go to the zoo.
* While the anime shows that Gash and Naomi compete in a series of different challenges at the park, all of these are filler except for the moment where Gash is seen falling into the large pit that Naomi had dug up in front of her.

## Censorship & Other Localization Differences

* In the original Japanese episode, while Gash and Naomi are at the park's jungle gym, Gash ends up pointing out the fact that he's able to see underneath Naomi's dress overalls as he tries to climb up the structure followed by a scene that shows Gash's visual perspective. In the VIZ localization, this scene was removed and a different frame of Naomi was recycled to replace that particular scene. The original dialogue was also changed.