Shinohara Wakaba
Grade: 8
Date of Birth: 3/14
Blood Type: O
"No matter how much I try to be his friend, no matter how much I think about him, his heart has belonged to that girl from the start. That girl, with her face that says she alone is special, will steal everything and anything from me. I simply can't bring myself to forgive her. Whether in love, or my studies, in the end I'm just another face in the crowd. M world is completely different from that of the special people. But...but..."
And so we come to Wakaba. Out of all the black rose duellists, I feel the sorry for Wakaba the most. We find out in this saga, that Wakaba's been hiding a little secret from everyone. Since he had no money, and no family to turn to, Saionji has been crashing with Wakaba in her dorm. During this time, Wakaba is absolutely radiant. She excels in all that she does, from playing tennis to her performance in her classes. The two get along great together. She rushes home everyday after school so she can see him, always walking in the door saying: "I'm home!". She leaves Saionji lunch money everyday, and she buys him teacups to use! It's just so incredibly cute! What's cuter is that Saionji is so grateful to Wakaba for doing this. He even cries because he's so grateful! As part of this gratitude he decides that he needs to repay Wakaba in some way. So he decides to carve a hairclip for Wakaba. Not just any hairclip, but a leaf-shaped one (in case you didn't know, Wakaba's name can be translated to mean leaf or something to that extent). He shows it to her, although it still isn't finished. Wakaba cries with joy! It's all so cute!!!!!!! However, all this happiness and cutess doesn't last! ::::sob:::: Saionji asks Wakaba how Anthy is doing, making it clear to Wakaba, that no matter what, he still cares for Anthy. Later, while Wakaba is at the store, Saionji gets an unexpected visitor.....Mikage. Mikage tells him, that if he will give him one thing, he will give a reccommendation to the academy to reinstate Saionji. He agrees. While on her way home, Wakaba passes Anthy without saying a word, but suddenly spins around in shock. In Anthy's hair she sees the hairclip which Saionji had made her. Well, I guess we know what Mikage wanted, now don't we? Instead of going home, Wakaba goes to Nemuro hall. After an emotional confession, she is approved as a duellist and returns home with her newfound motivation. She returns to find Saionji back in school uniform, packing his things. He explains that he has been reinstated to the academy and will be troubling her no longer. She asks where the hairclip he made is, and he says that he doesn't have it anymore, but that he will buy her something expensive instead and have it mailed to her dorm room. (And he was being so nice before!). However, Wakaba tells him there is no need for that, she has something better. She holds out her hand, showing him her new black rose signet. Saionji is shocked, but before he can have much of a reaction, Wakaba runs forward and basically rips his spirit sword out of him! Ouch! And so, we advance to the duel.
In actuality, you can't really call Wakaba's duel a real duel. Utena doesn't even draw her sword. However, it still is I guess. Utena's eyes are wide with shock when she enters the arena to find Wakaba waiting for her, sword in hand. Anthy knows that this presents a very dangerous situation for Utena and tells her to draw the sword of Dios immediately. Utena refuses to pull a sword on her friend. Meanwhile, Wakaba is fed up with waiting, so she lunges forward, not towards Utena however. She goes straight for Anthy. Utena protects Anthy by holding Wakaba back. This is the most emotional duel we've seen thus far. Wakaba screams at Utena, saying: "You, that girl, the student council members...all of you look down on me. Without a care in the world, flaunting the power you all were born with. So you can all calmly...walk over everyone else!!!". Utena tells her that there may be many things she doesn't understand, but she does know one thing for sure, that Wakaba is her best friend, and that she will save her. Utena twists the sword out of Wakaba's hands, and slices the black rose from her chest. After the duel, poor Wakaba is shown walking home from school. She enters her door, and leans back against it and says: "I'm home." This whole episode was just so sad. Poor Wakaba just wants to be special, she wants to belong and feel needed. The time she spent with Saionji was heaven to her, and she thought she had finally attained that which she'd always wanted. But, Saionji unknowingly screwed that all up. I really don't think he was trying to be mean, I know he wasn't! He just didn't know how deeply Wakaba's feelings for him were. One of the saddest episodes thus far. =(
