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Episode 12 -	The Blue Sky Rangers
	kokoro wa istumo aozora sentai
	[The Heart is Always With the Blue Sky Rangers]
First aired -	20th December 1996

As Sasami returns home with the groceries one day she accidentally bumps into a young man. She twists her ankle as she falls, so the kindly young man carries her the rest of the way home.

Back at Sasami's house, the man introduces himself to the family as Tenchi Masaki. As he takes tea with the family, he asks how well the Blue Sky Cool Rangers CDs are selling. He explains that he is the assistant director on the Cool Rangers TV show (a sci-fi action series), and is about to try his hand at directing, so he is keen to find out about his audience. Sasami, who is obviously quite taken with Tenchi, decides to start watching the show from now on...

That evening, the family watch the latest episode of the Blue Sky Cool Rangers. Sasami's parents explain that the show has been running for over 20 years, and is considered one of Japanese television's "legendary" programmes. Sasami's dad Ginji even appeared in it as a bad guy in one of the earlier episodes. Sasami is impressed that Tenchi is working on such a long-running and respected TV show.

After school the next day, Sasami arrives at the TV studio to deliver a CD to Tenchi. After a long hunt through the endless corridors and rooms, Sasami is directed to the staff room by a young woman she meets in the editing suite. On the way there, another studio worker tells Sasami that Tenchi often works into the night, but Sasami decides to wait for him to finish so she can give him the CD personally. As she waits, she overhears him discussing his directing debut script with the show's producers. He wants to keep an element of romance in the story, but he is having trouble convincing the producers of his vision. Sasami waits until sunset, but still doesn't get the chance to see Tenchi.

At school the following day, Sasami spends much of the lesson daydreaming about Tenchi. When school finishes, Sasami rushes off to the studio again instead of walking home with Misao, hoping to be able to deliver Tenchi's CD. On the way there, she sees him cycling along the road and calls out to him. In surprise, Tenchi careers off the road and lands on the grassy roadside bank, fortunately unhurt. Sasami notices the preoccupied look on Tenchi's face and asks him what is wrong. Tenchi remembers his script reading the previous day and how he failed to convince the producer about his vision of the show, but he tells Sasami not to worry, and that it's just "boring adult stuff".

At home that evening, Sasami is troubled by Tenchi's earlier comment. She begins to wonder when she will be old enough to be concerned about grown-up stuff too. She turns to her parents for help, asking when she will be adult too. Ginji and Honoka reassure her that wanting to be an adult is the first step to becoming one, and say that she should just be herself, and adulthood will arrive in good time. Feeling much better about herself, Sasami goes to bed, and promises herself that she will see Tenchi the next day and wish him luck.

The next day, Sasami arrives at the studio to watch Tenchi shooting his first episode of Cool Rangers. Little does she know that Misao has followed her to the studio. Misao is upset that Sasami has been hanging around the studio without telling her, and wonders if it means that Sasami doesn't like her any more. Just like every time Misao has felt lonely before, Rumiya makes his appearance...

On the Cool Rangers sound stage, Tenchi is having trouble. One of the actresses has grown impatient with his repeated retakes of the same scene, and she storms out in a temper. With their guest star out of the picture, the shoot has to be called off. However, Sasami has an idea. She transforms into Pretty Sammy and offers to take the place of the absent actress. Tenchi agrees, and the shoot goes ahead with Sammy playing the guest role for the episode. The producers are, for once, pleased with Tenchi; getting the talk-of-the-town magical girl to appear in their show is bound to be good for the ratings. However, there is one person who wants to mess up the shoot. Pixy Misa waits in the rafters with her latest Love-Love Monster, Special Effects Girl (a woman with a camera for a head and a cloak made from strips of film). She plans to interrupt Sammy during her final scene to maximise the chaos she can cause.

Sammy's final scene arrives, and she is called upon to deliver a line about using herself as a decoy so that the Cool Rangers can summon their Cool Robot for their final attack. However, Sammy's confidence flounders, and she fumbles the line. They try for another take, but this time Pixy Misa and Special Effects Girl interrupt and threaten to destroy the set. Special Effects Girl kicks off the chaos by transforming the production crew and other actors into comical multicoloured dinosaurs. Misa says she will only change them back if Sammy sacrifices herself and says the line she was supposed to in the scene. Sammy obligingly delivers her line, but as Misa lets out a victorious cackle, Sammy shouts that sacrificing herself is not what she wants to do. She prepares to cast the Pretty Coquettish Bomber, and Misa decides that it's better for her Love-Love Monster to be the decoy this time. Misa vanishes before the spell blasts Special Effects Girl out of the studio and off into the distance.

With the shoot saved and the crew returned to normal, Sammy asks Tenchi if she can change her final line to one about fighting as a team. Tenchi agrees, and the whole episode's script is changed so Sammy can continue to fight alongside the Cool Rangers.

Alas, after all her hard work on the TV show, a great disappointment lies ahead for Sasami. Tenchi calls her one afternoon to tell her that he has lost the directing job because of his decision to change the script so drastically, and he will be moving to Kyoto to work as a theatrical director. Sasami is even more upset when she discovers that Keiko, the woman she met at the TV studio, was living with Tenchi and is moving to Kyoto with him. As Tenchi and Keiko finish packing their belongings into the removals van, Tenchi asks Sasami to thank Sammy the next time she sees her. As she watches Tenchi drive away, her eyes fill with tears. However, Misao has come to see if Sasami is all right, and offers the heartbroken Sasami a friendly shoulder to cry on.

"It wasn't until a long time later," Sasami's voice-over recounts, "that I started to think that maybe this is what love felt like."

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