My Childhood Friend

"My Childhood Friend" is the first episode in Gokinjo Monogatari.

Plot
Episodes begins with Mikako drawing whith ketchup on her omurise Tsutomu's face and then, calling him by walkie-talkie device shaped as space saucer, and telling him that she is eating him right now. Tsutomu wakes up from her bizarre call and realizes that he overslept and hurriedly gets ready for school. They leave their apartments at the same time and together walk out of the building, where Noriji greets them with usual teasing. They start to yell and all neighbors pop out the windows to tell them to shut up. Mikako shouts "Warp!" (which mean teleportation) and runs away, Tsutomu follows her.

They commute to school by subway. On the station crowd mistake Tsutomu for famous  Ken Nakagawa, vocalist from kicking up-and-coming band "Manbou", and so they need to run from the crowd of fans. When they arrive to school many female students are greeting Tsutomu, he is quite popular among them. He stops to talk with Mariko Nakasu, second year interior design student who was crowned Miss Yazagaku in previous year and is known as "Nice  Body-ko". Mikako wonders how other girl able to see him as attractive person. Also his popularity bothers her.

Later in the class, Risa and P-chan read the article about Ken, and discuss how Tsutomu is "super-exact spitting image of Ken, today's heartthrob". Mikako is bothered by that. Risa and P-chan tease Mikako about how close Mikako is with her childhood friend: they lived in the same apartment complex since they were born and choose the same High school and commute to school together too, so they have all reasons to be a couple now. Mikako shouts "Warp!" and runs away. In the corridor Mikako thinks about her feelings to Tsutomu, that already are changing. In sewing class Mikako is so fired up that finished up her item all in one go and gets called by others "Fiery Girl of the Clothes Desing Class". But she gets detention from Ms. Hamada for bad quality work.

At lunch Yuusuke and Jiro tease Tsutomu about his popularity and ask him when he is going to invite Mariko with her friends to go on group date to caraoke together with them.

On her way back Mikako sees how Mariko kisses Tsutomu in the cheek and gets so mad at him, that she gives him a slap. After that she runs away to Blue Parrot Bar. Tsutomu follows her. In the Blue parrot, the owner Tokumori tells them they shouldn't come to his bar because they minors. Also he says their fight probably is Tsutomu's fault, considering he has lipstick on his cheek. While Tsutomu rushes to the bathroom to wipe out lipstick, Mikako tries to pay for hers and Tsutomu's orange juice, but Tokumori kindly says he can't take money from both of them, because they like a family to him, so if she wants to thank him, she should just treat him to something nice. She warmly smiles on that and leaves the bar. Tsutomu returns from the bathroom and continues conversation with Tokumori. Tsutomu's feelings towards Mikako also already begun to change and he also is bothered by it.

Later in the evening, when Tsutomu is playing console video game with his father, his mother comes in with Ruriko and asks him if he knows where is Mikako, who still didn't come home. Tsutomu rushes to search for her and runs into Noriji, who just put on the wall warning poster about maniacs roaming in the neighborhood. They all go to search for Mikako.

Mikako sits under the elephant-shaped slide at the playground, where she was hiding four years ago when her parents divorced. While she recalls that back then Tsutomu came there for her, she dozes off. When she wakes up, she realizes that it's pouring outside and it's already very late. At that moment someone approaches the slide, but his face is unseen in the darkness, so he terrifies Mikako, but right after that Tsutomu shows up, mistakes the person for some maniac and punches him. That person turns out to be just unrecognized at first Noriji. When Tsutomu asks Mikako why she was hiding there for so long, she is too embarassed to say that she just dozed off, but Tsutomu simply assumes that she couldn't leave a stray kitty, that she was holding in her arms. He says he will ask Noriji to let her keep the kiiten.

When they all head back to apartment building, Mikako apologizes for a slap to Tsutomu. He responds with silly jokes on that. They simultaneously close the doors to their apartments, that are next to each other.

In the end she says:My neighbor is Yamaguchi Tsutomu. He may be a total goof, but I can never hate him.

Cast and character appearances

 * Ms. Hamada  (First appearance)
 * Hiroaki Tokumori  (First appearance)
 * Hirohiko Sakurada  (Mentioned only)
 * Ken Nakagawa  (Appears in picture(s))
 * Kimiko Yamaguchi  (First appearance)
 * Kuro  (First appearance)
 * Mai "P-chan" Oota  (First appearance)
 * Mariko Nakasu  (First appearance)
 * Mikako Kouda  (First appearance)
 * Noriji Sunami  (First appearance)
 * Risa Kanzaki  (First appearance)
 * Ruriko Kouda  (First appearance)
 * Tsutomu Yamaguchi  (First appearance)
 * Yuichirou Yamaguchi  (First appearance)

Differences from the manga

 * In the beginning, in the manga Mikako recalls some song about Tsutomu. In the anime she eats omurice with drawings of Tsutomu and wakes him with the call about that.
 * In the manga Ruriko pleads with Noriji to let them keep the kitty, despite the fact that pets are prohibited in their apartment complex. In the anime Tsutomu only says that he will talk to Noriji about that.
 * In the anime lots of characters appear in the episode, but they are not introduced to a viewer yet. As well as Mikako's dreams are not stated yet. Unlike in the manga.