The Blonde Effect

"The Blonde Effect" is the fourth chapter of Gokinjo Monogatari written by Ai Yazawa. It was published in the magazine, Ribon and collected into the first volume of the manga.

Mikako bleaches her blonde at the beginning for a change in style. Later Yuusuke is interested in Mikako and ends up asking everyone to the amusement park. Yuusuke, Mikako, Tsutomu, and Mariko are the only ones able to make it. Yuusuke tries to keep up with Mikako throughout the amusement park, but gives up on her completely at the end.

Plot
Mikako states that she bleached her hair blonde not because Tsutomu likes foreign blondes, but because she has been feeling down recently, so she decided to give herself a makeover to lift her spirits. Also, she said to, shocked by her look, Tsutomu, that everyone is dyeing their hair brown now, so she wanted to be "a new Mikako-chan that makes a statement". She added that she's going to dye her hair pink later ♥.

In school, everyone likes her new hair color. Since Tsutomu's and Mikako's friends finally got acquainted in previous chapter, all of them first time gathered together to eat in school cafeteria. Yuusuke, while trying to hit on Mikako, says that he likes girls, who go all out. But Mikako doesn't understand wat he is doing, so she simply replies that her hair doesn't compare to Jiro's super wild purple hair and Risa's awesome red hair. Tsutomu ignores all this and playing gameboy. Yuusuke is going further and tries to invite Mikako with him to amusement park. He's got only 2 tickets, on money he got by working as morning paper-boy. Jiro, Risa and Mariko shows desire to go too, so they ends up making plans as 3 for 3 group date. But after all, Risa and Jiro can't make it, because of their part-time jobs.

In the park, Mikako is jealous over Tsutomu's cuddling with Mariko, so she walks off with Yuusuke. It obvious that Tsutomu is also jealous over Mikako. Mariko feels hurted by it, because she started to like Tsutomu. She tries to go home, but crowd around them mistake Tsutomu for Ken Nakagawa and make them run away from crazy fans together.

Meanwhile, Mikako and Yuusuke very unhappy with each other ― Yuusuke is sick from roller coaster, but Mikako appears to be huge fan of this attraction.

Tsutomou and Mariko escape the crowd by getting on ferris wheel. Tsutomu regretfully recalls that he answered Yuusuke that's it up to him whether he wants to go out with Mikako, or not. Mariko says that she understand his feelings, because she also likes her childhood friend, the guy, Tsutomu saw at the picture in her place. She tells him about her plans to visit her home in Yokohama after spring break and see her first love too. Tsutomu also realizes that he has feelings about Mikako.

On their way from wheel, Tsutomu is scared by Yuusuke's jokingly calls out him as Naka-Ken with a model (they heard it what's crowd in the park were thinking). He left Mikako riding attraction by herself, which pissed off Tsutomu. Tsutomu kicks Yuusuke and rushes to Mikako.

While Mikako is riding roller coaster, she thinks about how much Tsutomu's dating another girl makes her feel lonely and miserable. Even roller coaster didn't helped her to shake off those feelings.

In the Blue Parrot, Ruriko discusses with Tokumori Mikako's sudden change of appearance. She is concerned about what's bothering Mikako. Ruriko remembers episode in the summer after Mikako's 3rd grade. During that summer Tsutomu was vacationing in the countryside, Ruriko started to tease Mikako about it, in result of what Mikako pierced her ears by herself to cheer herself up. And her third piercing came around the same time when her parents divorced.

Meantime, Tsutomu finds Mikako, crowd again notice him and chase both of them away.

On the next day, rumor that Mariko and Tsutomu broke up spreads around the entire school, though people mostly think that Tsutomu was just played by Body-ko. Mikako and Risa completely dumbfounded by this news.

Character appearances

 * Hiroaki Tokumori
 * Hirohiko Sakurada
 * Jiro Nishino
 * Ken Nakagawa
 * Kuro
 * Mai Oota
 * Mariko Nakasu
 * Mikako Kouda
 * Noriji Sunami
 * Risa Kanzaki
 * Ruriko Kouda
 * Shuuji Shintani
 * Tsutomu Yamaguchi
 * Yuusuke Tashiro

Trivia

 * Ruriko Kouda bought a huge Sudou Saurus, that scares Kuro, and is similar to the one Tsutomu has.