Perhaps romance has always been weird

No matter your relationship status, you’ve definitely seen pictures and memes or heard stories through the grapevine about how certain people are made for each other. When applied to fiction, fanbases notoriously put certain characters together and creatively put whatever circumstances they can concoct to make it happen in their own fanfics. Sometimes it works, but other times it’s more or less an appeal to a certain character for a variety of reasons. And as you might expect, other aspects of the fanbase can get perverse in this matter. This typically happens when a series is presented as neutrally as possible. The series I’m talking about here starts off in a strange position by virtue of its own title:

Nazo no Kanojo X or Mysterious Girlfriend X gained fame at the time of release for one of its characters, Mikoto Urabe, releasing the sluice gate she has for a mouth and leaking all of her drool. A sane man would probably be put off by this aspect, but curiosity overrules sanity and the other character, Akira Tsubaki, licks some of the drool she leaves on her desk while napping during lunch. Why would he do that? Don’t bother looking for answers to that question because it goes unacknowledged for the remainder of the show.

Urabe is a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. She’s introduced as the new girl and in the first episode bursts into uncontrollable laughter. She’s awfully cagey for a girl romantically involved with Tsubaki, and more or less prefers this sort of arrangement, even keeping a pair of scissors tucked into her underwear. Of all the talk you hear on social media of fighting back suspected and would-be rapists, Urabe is ready to make sashimi out of anyone. S[sword unsheathing]t-talking is for the weak.

Credit: SoundwaveSuperior69 on DeviantArt

Tsubaki meanwhile is the polar opposite of his girlfriend. An open book with an evident circle of friends and interests, you don’t really have to guess what’s on his mind, what he did or what he’s gonna do next. Obligatory: run-of-the-mill male protagonist ends up with “quirky” female protagonist. There’s a name for this specific trope and I won’t rest until I learn it! The closest would probably be manic pixie dream girl, but I personally think that’s a dubious label to throw into this.

Either way, the two are practically ripped from the bizarro world of shipping. Whereas established characters will be randomly paired by the fandom, mangaka Riichi Ueshiba started out that way. Call Urabe a foil to this slice of bread we call a male protagonist with her hentai protagonist hair, anti-molestor blades, unorthodox outlook on life, and obsession with saliva. The last of those being the tamest fetish I’ve seen or heard of, and no I won’t elaborate on what I think is the wildest one I’m aware of.

So that’s them as individuals, how do they behave as a couple? Initially, I was gonna say that her cagey personality gets in the way of things, but on closer inspection, it feels a bit more like she wears a slightly longer pair of pants. Think of it this way, Tsubaki is smitten yet nervous around her due to a lack of dating/romantic experience whereas Urabe has scissors rated E for everyone… and I do mean everyone. She sets hard boundaries, but will make concessions to let her Tsubaki into her space. Her flavor of introvert is honest yet taciturn as she won’t even fake a smile for a picture. Lack of sportsmanship? Considering, she talks to only like two or three people all anime, that’s an easy assumption to make though I’ve heard it explained (can’t remember where, sorry) that most of the action happens offscreen. In this case, any number of wild stories can be made about the girl and Ueshiba may or may not elaborate further. Actually, it’s possible to argue that Urabe herself is in some capacity an extension of Ueshiba, the mangaka.

A quick googling shows that the number of interviews he’s done is close to the number of fingers on the average human hand. Photographs are even more elusive as I’m certain there don’t exist any that he’s agreed to share. Even without any expectations, I knew for a fact that Urabe would live up to the mysterious moniker but for it to likely be connected to the man who conceptualized her character is practically “write what you know” in living color. And in this instance, Ueshiba seems to be the only one who knows. Not that he’s the first or only one to subscribe to that philosophy.

Now why am I watching this anime? Once again, I’m doing so on a whim. The romance does intrigue me, but more so the appeal of Who’s This Drooling Girl? is the fact that it’s a break from the action-heavy series we’re getting these days. It had its 15 minutes of fame a decade ago, but now that more people are paying attention to other things developing in contemporary manga (as well as disappointing endings), going to series only five people globally know about is a nice change of pace.

I’d also like to highlight how much of a deconstruction of many tropes Urabe is.

Unlike most other characters, she leaves the audience and the characters guessing. Again, not the first character to do this, but one of the few who does it in less overt ways. The most she’ll do is test whether you can stomach her drool (that sounded better in my head (>_<)); if you can succeed, you two are meant to be. If not, well the effort was made and the question was answered.

Based on my description of her in regard to Tsubaki in general, it sounds like I described a yandere, but Urabe isn’t like that. She shows that she cares about him, but is the last person who’d reach out for a hug from him, especially in public. She’s like a planet: her gravitational pull reels him in, but not too close. As explained in the series (and this blog from 2018), she doesn’t need him to be physically close for there to be a bond. Her drool does the heavy lifting for her there. More than just a test of her connection to whomever tastes it, it’s properties seem to activate different senses and feelings especially in Tsubaki. It’ll make him sick, feel pain, give him a window into Urabe’s true feelings; I’ve never heard of anyone’s saliva doing that so the bond is either that strong or she’s aN aLiEn?!?!?

Again, neither Urabe nor Ueshiba will elaborate, so that’s up to you to decide. For what it’s worth, the manga has 12 volumes, 13 episodes and an OVA ripe for the pirating. Enjoy having questions go unanswered.

Also, Urabe can definitely make twintails work. Shame it’s only in one episode, but fanart thankfully picks up the slack.