Episode 2: Mysterious Bond

Mysterious Bond
Kanji	謎の結合
Romaji	Nazo no Ketsugou
Information
Japan Air Date	April 14, 2012
Episode	2
Chapters adapted	Chapter 0: Oneshot, Chapter 1: Mysterious Bond
Relationship milestones	Urabe makes Tsubaki aroused for the first time via their bond, first time emotions and feelings are properly transferred by drool, Urabe explains that Tsubaki can never hug her without asking, Tsubaki learns to fear Urabe's scissors
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Mysterious Bond (謎の結合 Nazo no Ketsugou) is Episode 2 of Nazo no Kanojo X.

Summary

Akira Tsubaki decides to ask his friend, Kouhei Ueno, on what he could do to advance his relationship with Mikoto Urabe without revealing he is going out with her. However, none of his advice seems to work on Urabe, and Tsubaki becomes more and more dejected.

Plot

During the cold opening, Tsubaki's friends are rating the attractiveness of girls in their class, which he is reluctantly keeping score of. Tsubaki is spacing out and thinking about Urabe becoming his new girlfriend when they decide to rate her next. They protest she is too weird to even score, and Tsubaki gets a little inwardly annoyed.

Tsubaki and Ueno are getting some drinks from the vending machine when suddenly Ueno grabs Tsubaki's arm. He explains that feel of the back of someone's arm just below the elbow feels like breasts. Tsubaki gropes his own arm and thinks of Urabe, saying her name out loud and arousing Ueno's suspicions.

Once he's done being a stereotype of a teenage boy, Tsubaki asks Ueno that if he 'hypothetically got a girlfriend', what his first move with her should be. Ueno questions whether he has a girlfriend, but informs him that holding hands is a good first step. This prompts Tsubaki to run off in delight at the idea.

Later that day while Tsubaki is walking home with Urabe, he attempts to hold her hand. Before they can make contact, Urabe pulls her hand away and asks him what's going on. Tsubaki explains that he wants to hold hands with her, and Urabe flatly refuses as there's no reason to. Tsubaki thinks to himself how they can have been going out for a whole month and not done anything that couples tend to do.

The next day, Tsubaki again asks Ueno for advice. Ueno becomes more suspicious, but says that before holding hands he could try 'communicating' with a girlfriend, asking about her hobbies. Tsubaki wonders if Ueno has a girlfriend, Ueno denies it, and Tsubaki waits until the walk home again to talk to Urabe.

Tsubaki tries to talk to Urabe after their daily routine to try and ascertain if she has any hobbies they could talk about. Urabe reveals that her hobby is scissors, and shows him by quickly cutting a strip of paper into a series of camellia flowers in the blink of an eye using scissors that she keeps in her panties. She explains that Tsubaki means camellia, hence the pattern. An incredibly surprised and shocked Tsubaki wonders how such a feat can have been achieved in the blink of an eye, and why she would keep scissors in her panties to begin with. Urabe explains that's just the way she is. A further confused Tsubaki wonders how she's OK with showing off her pants in public, to which she replies that as long as its him seeing them, Urabe is fine with it.

Back home, Tsubaki tries to ask his sister if panty scissors are a thing but backs down when she herself becomes confused. He excuses himself to do homework. Later that night he has a dream about scissors attacking him in the dream city, eventually revealed to be Urabe wearing nothing but her panties with her scissors holstered in them.

Yet again, Tsubaki asks Ueno for advice, by which point Ueno is sure Tsubaki has a girlfriend. Ueno says that Tsubaki needs to actually introduce himself to his girlfriend as first impressions are important. Tsubaki decides he's had enough of Ueno's advice, but cannot figure out what to do.

That evening, Urabe leaves Tsubaki at a different point during their walk without doing their daily routine. Feeling even more dejected after all his failings, Tsubaki is unsure what to think, but is surprised when Urabe comes back to give him some candy she's been sucking on for a slightly more special way of performing their routine. Overcome by the gesture, the drool-covered candies its sweetness and his desperation, Tsubaki attempts to hug Urabe from behind. This incurs her wrath as she deftly slips out from his grasp and shreds some cardboard boxes behind him. She explains never to try that without asking, and then goes home. Tsubaki ends up frustrated because there's seemingly nothing they can do as a couple.

Ueno gives Tsubaki two tickets to a film they've been wanting to see, but tells him he's already seen it so Tsubaki can keep the spare ticket. Tsubaki asks Urabe to go with him to see the film, but she declines as she has plans. She proceeds to try and give Tsubaki his daily dose of drool, however by this point the constant rejection and failures has got to him and he is curled up in a ball on the floor. Urabe asks what's wrong, and Tsubaki responds by asking her if they can really be together if they don't do anything that couples do at all.

Urabe explains that their daily routine and her drool is the bond they share. To demonstrate this she takes Tsubaki to an abandoned and dilapidated house away from their homes and sits him down on a stool in the middle of a room. She tells him to close his eyes and to promise not to open them until she says so. Urabe then feeds Tsubaki more of her drool, which causes his heart to race and his nose to bleed. She explains that their drool is a special bond that allows them to understand what each other is feeling, and right now the reason he's feeling aroused and very hot is because she's also feeling aroused. Revealed to the audience but unbeknownst to him, she's standing naked in front of him, but goes on to explain that the reason their drool bond is special is because he's her boyfriend.

On the walk home, Urabe explains her heart was beating so much because she was afraid Tsubaki would open his eyes. When he asks her what would happen if he had broken that promise, Urabe grabs her scissors and slices up the notebook he brings up as a shield, saying she may have done worse if he did open his eyes. She apologises for cutting up his notebook and they go home.

That night, Tsubaki dreams about having sex with Urabe in the dream city while she has a doll tied to her head. The next day, Tsubaki can't stop blushing while he's around Urabe. He tells her it's because of a dream he had but won't go into specifics, resulting in her using her incredible speed to get some of Tsubaki's saliva onto her finger before he can react. She tastes his drool and begins to blush as her nose bleeds from arousal. She is somehow able to recall the details of his dream, and she tells him it's fine to dream whatever he wants but she would never wear a doll on her head if they were having sex.

Tsubaki is surprised that she can tell that much from his drool, and chases after her as she playfully runs away from him.

Notes

• There is quite a lot of Bad Cat branding on the vending machine - this is Ueshiba Riichi's author persona
• Characters from Riichi's previous work Discommunication can be seen on some of the drinks cans, and also seem to be the stars of the Science Boy and Magic Girl movie Tsubaki gets tickets for
• The scene where Urabe reveals the panty scissors is directly lifted from the one-shot/Chapter 0, with the only difference in the scene being that she performs the feat in the park they sometimes frequent later on in the manga.
• However, the following scene with Tsubaki's sister and the dream where Urabe appears naked is brand new to the anime
• Like the manga, Urabe doesn't actually tell Tsubaki that she was naked in front of him. However, he seems to have figured it out by the time of the cultural festival, possibly with thanks to the events of the next episode
• While Ueno is dating Oka in the next episode, we don't really know if he is during this episode. It might be implied that the reason he can't see the film with Tsubaki is because he saw it with Oka, but that is unconfirmed
• This episode is mainly based on chapter 1 of the manga, although it includes a scene from chapter 0 that was omitted from episode 1
• There are quite a few changes, mainly additions, made over Chapter 1 of the manga
  • The entire cold opening scene where the boys of 2-A are rating the girls does not appear anywhere in the manga, although they do rate them in their swimming costumes in another chapter
  • Tsubaki does not ask Ueno for any advice during the chapter, in fact he's never even seen
  • Tsubaki does not try to hold Urabe's hand before asking her if it's OK. Her reaction is still the same, albeit without her trademark glare
  • As mentioned above, the scene with Tsubaki folding laundry is new, created specifically for the anime
  • The dream about white pants and fabric is also brand new, but the concept of Tsubaki getting hungover by different coloured panties is explored a few times in the manga much later on
  • Urabe cuts up a hedge next to Tsubaki in the manga instead of cardboard boxes behind him after he tries to hug her. She cuts both into the shape of the cowering Tsubaki though
  • The tickets are from Ueno in the anime, as apparently Tsubaki and him were going to see it together. In the manga, Tsubaki appears to have bought them himself in a last ditch attempt to try and do something with Urabe
  • When Tsubaki asks what would have happened had he opened his eyes, Urabe cuts up his notebook into many little men. In the manga, she instead cuts a Tsubaki-shaped hole out of a cardboard standee next to him
  • The doll attached to Urabe's head in Tsubaki's sex dream is much more elaborate and detailed in the manga
  • There's again more symbolism in this episode that doesn't appear in the manga, such as cat and bird couples doing their own thing, a temple and ants stripping a beetle carcass bare when Urabe is baring her soul to Tsubaki
• The common Japanese media cliché of a nose bleed to indicate sexual arousal is used a lot throughout the series, but is first used in this episode
• In the original broadcast version of this episode, when Urabe was naked her body was covered in shading from the neck down in certain shots. This censorship was removed for the DVD and Blu-ray release.