Mamimi Samejima is one of the main characters from the FLCL anime.
A truant high school student with pyromaniacal tendencies, she's apparently Naota's brother Tasuku's girlfriend, but appears to have entered into some sort of relationship with Naota since his brother left Japan. She also smokes a lot and spends most of her time under a bridge. She is often seen with a camera, and always smokes a worn cigarette with "Never Knows Best" written onto the paper. It is implied that she is often bullied at school, causing her to often ditch.
In the AWA fics, Mamimi is a student at the AWA Academy.
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.
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 an almost-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.
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.
- She cameos in the FLCL Progressive ending cinematic.
Gallery[]
