Character Profile: Naota Nandaba

Naota is a small grade-school student, living in the town of Mabase, Japan. He lives in a house/shop with his father and grandfather. He has a brother, Tasuka, with whom he has a strange relationship, a kind of obsessive admiration. His brother was a great baseball player, but he left to play for the majors in America. As a result of this, Naota always carries around a baseball bat which he only uses to hit broken vending machines and other mechanical annoyances. He also gets agitated when people talk about his brother and does not like anyone touching his brother's stuff or his bed (they slept in bunk beds, Naota's bed on the bottom).

He goes to school and has three friends, one who is an average boy, one who is a overreacting kid who has a large fixation on perversion, and Eri, who shows signs of having interest in Naota, partially attracted to him for the fact that he tries to keep to himself. He has a habit of running into Mamimi, his brother's old girlfriend who is several years older then him and goes to high school, though she skips class nearly everyday. She had a thing for Naota's brother but takes out her loneliness and sexual frustrations on Naota, who always protests but always comes back to see Mamimi every day after school, which poses the question if he likes Mamimi or not.

The story kicks off when Naota is suddenly run down by a very strange woman (Haruko) on her Vespa motor bike. She revives him with CPR (though it was really just a long kiss) only to slam him on the forehead with her Rickenbacker bass guitar. He manages to get away, only to find that he has a abnormally large growth on his forehead, and soon after finds himself stalked by the very strange Haruko who keeps trying to check his forehead (Naota wears a band-aid to cover up the lump which can be hidden when pressed down on). He goes home only to find this woman is now his family's new live in house keeper, a payment since Haruko also ran over his perverted father with her Vespa. What ensues is that Kanchi, a large robot, comes out of his head and ends up becoming a second live in housekeeper.

Naota appears to dislike things being out of the ordinary, stating that the town is 'Normal, nothing ever happens here,' and gets rather agitated when things get out of their usual routine. He is very much a shut in, always keeping to himself and always disliking any undue attention focused on him. His major pet peeve appears to be that he hates it when adults don't act their age, he himself always being complimented on how mature he is for his age. He hardly ever is happy and usually has a very negative air about him. As the story progresses, and Haruko stays longer at his house, she appears to have an influence on him which causes him to start acting unlike himself, such as being more outgoing and receptive to attention paid to him.

Side notes: In order to hide the various 'growths' protruding from his head at any given time, he wears many odd looking hats, all of which are mocked for being stupid or ugly looking. He never swings the bat when he plays baseball for his grandfather's team (he took his brother's place when he left for America) and several comments about him 'never swinging the bat' are made in and out of the baseball context. At first, the only time he seems to smile is when he manages to make a insult-like comment about Haruko, or when she is getting frustrated with something. He gets hit a lot by vehicles in the series, namely Haruko's Vespa, so when he is hit by a mini-truck in episode 5, he is able to bounce back from it in seconds, stating that he was used to it by now.

Naota Nanbada is the main character of Fooly Cooly. He is a 12 year old grade schooler in the "boring" town of Mabase. His father is Kamon Nanbada and his mother is unknown. He has a grandpa named Shigekuni Nanbada. He also has an older brother that lives in America, who plays baseball (thus, the baseball bat Naota carries around).

Mamimi Samejima is his older brother's girl-friend, and she seems to have taken a liking to Naota now that his brother is gone. In the begining, these two are pretty tight and Naota hangs out with her a lot under the city bridge.

Naota meets Haruko when she runs him over with her Vespa scooter, and then hits him in the head with her bass guitar (after performing mouth to mouth.) That's when things get weird for this kid.

After Haruko hit him, things started to come out of his head. The first thing was Kanchi, a robot. Throughout the series Naota becomes closer with Haruko, and in the end he confesses his love for her.