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Mai-Otome/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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== Anime ==
=== Why don't they just use condoms? ===
* Because you [[Can't Get Away
* Besides, [[But We Used a Condom|condoms aren't 100% fail-safe.]]
* Do they even ''exist'' in [[The Verse]]? Maybe they have an ultra-conservative government that banned birth control.
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* More than likely because of shear impracticality. It's implied that it really needs to be a direct injection of the stuff to do anything (so even if somebody was enough of a psycho to try making it into a gas or something it may not have worked), and syringes make for ''terrible'' weaponry because of the fact that it really needs to go in very specific points on the body that are very small to get into the bloodstream, and the needles on them are fragile as can be so trying any kind of forceful stab would likely break them. As for [[Abnormal Ammo|semen syringe shooting guns]], you'd need [[Improbable Aiming Skills]] of the highest order to hit said points with a gun at any range, and that's not even taking into account the fact that they can dodge normal bullets. At that rate, this troper thinks they're all better off having them try to stab each other with [[Big Fucking Sword|their BFSs]].
=== Is the storyline connected to ''[[
* The answer varies depending on the medium. If it's the manga, then yes (it's stated outright by the [[Big Bad]] that the current planet is Earth, and he also mentions the events of the ''[[Mai-HiME (
** The anime implies, sort-of-kind-of, that ''-Otome'' takes place in the far future of ''-Hime'', and the identical-seeming characters are genetic legacies of the originals after some fashion. (Either due to cloning or just winding up with an eventual Identical Ancestor.) Basically, Earth got all advanced after (and because of) the events of ''-Hime'', they sent out colonists, colonized the world of ''-Otome'', and developed further from there. It's pretty ambiguous though, yeah.
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*** It didn't really matter if Mashiro was alive at this point; he had her country after all, and the marriage wasn't important after that.
*** That doesn't change the fact that the whole exchange doesn't make sense. Even if Nagi didn't need Mashiro alive, the mission is presented to Sergei and Nina as "retrieve Mashiro", not "kill Mashiro" and yet Sergei clearly gets the implication of Nagi's "We don't need Arika-chan anymore" but somehow fails to notice or protest that killing Arika would kill Mashiro as well. It's just retardedly done no matter how you look at it.
*** Both Arika and Mashiro are potential threats to him. So, either he captures them to keep them under his control, or he kills
**** Sergay tells Arika to surrender if possible and appears to react to Tomoe trying to kill her as though it's something that's contrary to the plan. It's unclear whether this is Nagi's plan or just him acting on his own, though.
** He never clearly state "kill Arika". Just that she is useless to them. Also, Sergey realises that killing Arika is bad idea, watch his reaction as Tomoe goes out of control. It could be interepted that Nagi wanted Sergey to... depower(look up on the page) Arika and lock her up so she would no longer be a threath to him. Which just makes Nagi even more jerk.
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=== Wouldn't it have been easier to introduce the rule that Otome are not allowed to fight other Otome and/or are restrictied to defensive methods only? It would have made for far less drama, but that way the nations could still have defended themselves against eachother's armies, without risking all-out destruction by Otome going berserk. ===
* That would defeat the whole point of the Otome system, which goes roughly like this: "If wars happen anyway, let's avoid unnecessary human casualties by introducing warriors nearly indestructible by conventional means and thus reducing wars to duels between them." Of course, everyone, including the Otome themselves, hopes that the rulers will be wise enough to never unleash them against each other, but it's not always the case.
** Sounds like "[[Star Trek:
*** In a word, 'yes.' The whole narrative of the series is about a breakdown in those rules. If you substitute "[[Nuclear Weapons Taboo|Nuclear Weapons]]" for "Otome" things make a lot more sense.
**** Keep in mind that when an Otome fights, they risk there master's life as well as there own, so in order to be effective in a war, this system means that the head of state is personally risking their life. Kind of brings the stakes closer to the decision makers.
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=== Why were only four of the Five Columns present during the final battle? Where was Mahya, in Cardair adjusting King Kazuya's chastity belt? ===
* Mahya showed up towards the end of the battle with Akane. You may have been [[Distracted
** Maybe, but where was she before?
*** ...with Akane and Kazuya. Are you unclear on the timeline of events?
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=== Is this show supposed to be science fiction? If so, it's so [[Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness|soft]] it makes my head hurt. ===
* The show actually has more of a fantasy setting. The SF-elements merely function as ways to spice up the plot a little.
** Ironically, ''Mai-Otome'' qualifies for science fiction more strongly than, say, ''[[Star Wars]]'', even though the "science" behind it is complete
* ''Mai Otome'' is Science Fantasy. a fantasy plot with science fiction style elements but no serious attempt to make the science consistent or physically plausible. Just like Star Wars.
** The technology presented in ''Mai-Otome'', while completely implausible, is internally consistent in a [[Magic A Is Magic A]] sense. Star Wars is space opera: its futuristic setting serves little purpose except as a backdrop for epic stories (although the [[Expanded Universe]] highly varies in this respect). Here, the Otome technology is a plot point, a rather obvious metaphor, and the series explores its effects on the society, both short-term and long-term.
* Whole serie revolves around technology. Nanomachines replace magic, altoughn they work same way (don't ask about slaves, there is no excuse for them). [[The Force]] of [[Star Wars]] works sameway, altough less consistent. So yeah, ''Mai-Otome'' is science fiction. It has science(major point of the serie) and it's fiction. Criterie filled. If they would say [[A Wizard Did It|MAGIG]] then it would be fantasy.
=== How did Arika and Nina survive the fall through the atmosphere... without Robes... naked? ===
* [[The Power of Love]]?
** No, thanks, I'd prefer a logical answer that makes sense in a rational, materialistic universe.
*** You're watching the wrong show for that.
**** It's your opinion. Thing is, there's no magic involved in ''Mai-Otome''. It would never occur to me to ask such Just Bugs Me question for, say, ''[[
***** It's your opinion. It's more of a magical girl show with a slight genre and demographic shift, which means it's still heavily immersed in magical girl tropes, including The Power Of Love.
*** It's more like [[Magic From Technology]], really.
**** it's not just like [[Magic From Technology]] it realy is that, at least in the manga. Where it is made clear that the Otome's are the end product of the Searrs Foundation's research.
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=== Why didn't [[Extreme Doormat|Miya]] simply stand up to Tomoe and tell her to get bent? She didn't have anything to gain by going along with her, and would probably have been able to make something of herself if she stayed on the straight and narrow (for given values of "[[Schoolgirl Lesbians|straight]]"). ===
* Furthermore, why didn't anyone else except Chie or Shizuru notice? It's not like [[Devil in Plain Sight|Tomoe was doing that good a job at keeping it a secret]].
** I motion that we add [[Selective Obliviousness]] to the main entry due to this failure of main characters to notice important things, like upcoming betrayals.
*** I'm tempted to go one step further and call [[Idiot Plot]] here. Specifically, the survival exam episode, when Arika and Erstin's tracking bracelets lose their energy when they try to call for backup after Ers gets bitten by a snake. I think it would have made sense to send one or two of the Meisters to form a search party at or around the point where they stopped receiving the signal. Instead, the faculty waits around for news of Arika disappearing to suspend the trial, not considering that someone ({{spoiler|Tomoe}}) could have tampered with the equipment before everyone got started. Sure, it would have been a mild inconvenience to double-check the bracelets and repair them if necessary, but wouldn't it have made sense to ensure that everyone was competing on equal ground?
* C'mon, this one's easy. Tomoe is a bully. Lots of high school students have trouble standing up to bullies. There doesn't have to be a fancy reason for
** Still, in Episode 5, Nina threatens to not hold anything back if Miya does it again. Is Miya that much more scared of Tomoe than of Nina? And shouldn't Miya have at least enough of a conscience to go against Tomoe when her plans involve having Arika ''[[Moral Event Horizon|raped]]''?
=== Garderobe is sitting on powerful tech capable of lifting the human race to being a truly space-faring race, and the only way they see the tech is as a weapon, even to the point of dehumanizing the very wielders of the tech. ===
* "I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." - John Adams.
* That's actually kind of the point. Garderobe was founded after a disasterous war with high technology that looked like it could be ''[[The End of the World
** Well yeah... On the other hand, it can be argued that if the tech were redesigned with a different set of restrictions a functioning society could be constructed where the only difference is a proportionally greater quantity of power in a given individual. For example, just nanites gets you basic reaction-less acceleration and environmental invulnerability up to and including no atmosphere, with society authorizing individuals for larger allowed power-levels (increasing abilities and granting new ones,) culminating in combat-level and finally the old Meister Gems. Perhaps acquired similarly to driving licenses, with the combat-level and Meister Gems subject to the strictest regulation and years of training. It just seems like the ancients had a knee-jerk reaction to a new tech and applied some unneeded restrictions to it.
** [[Humans Are
* Depending on your interpretation of the series' implications, humanity already is space-faring, and that's how they settled the planet they currently live on.
=== Why didn't the Windbloom royal family get a new Otome after Rena was "depowered"? Not only that, from the way Sergei and others present the story (that the Windbloom invasion "coincidentally" happened right after Rena's "retirement", when she'd already been "retired" for about a year at that point) it sounds like Windbloom and/or Garderobe kept Rena's depowerment and subsequent pregnancy a secret from the public, only choosing to reveal it a few months after Arika had been born. Why? ===
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*** On a separate matter, shouldn't there be repercussions for one GEM that formerly belonged to Florence changing hands to Cardair? The two countries weren't on good terms before, and while Shiho (another Otome formerly from Cardair) takes Akane's place as Florence's Otome, I wonder what the King would have to say about the GEM going missing. Akane was going to send it back as soon as she "lost (her) qualification for using it", but that never ended up happening.
** It's suggested in the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj-4t6H_X60 Character Profiles] (see 0:48 and 1:04) that the Corals and Pearls got their names from jewelry that can be mass produced, which might suggest that the Academy can easily make 50 gems for first year students and 25 for second years. This would also imply that making Meister-level [[GE Ms]] is more complicated, but may produce stronger [[GE Ms]] with unique abilities. Then again, as for Otomes, there's no shortage of volunteers for Otomes, and as most of the replacements happened almost immediately, it's strange that Windbloom didn't replace Rena when she was depowered for at least nine months, and possibly retired for longer than that.
How do you know that they didn't have another otome, one who was overwhelmed by sheer numbers and force? It's been proven that Aswald can overpower otome (Like with Fiar). And since that other otome wasn't really important, she was left out of the story.
=== Wait... Why did the Harmonium react to {{spoiler|Arika and Mashiro if Nina was the true princess}}? ===
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=== Mashiro's identity ===
* So, the minister turns up with some random infant and proclaims she's the lost princess, and all they can do is ''suspect'' her of being fake? What ever happened to DNA tests?
** Ignoring the very real possibility that DNA tests just don't exist here, its made pretty clear that everyone knew Mashiro might be a
** Because at that moment, all they knew was that royal family was wiped out and they needed ''someone'' to claim the throne or face civil war. So one duke comes and says "Hey, I got princess!" everyone just rolls with it. They might have made DNA test, but decided that fake princess is better than no princess at all.
=== Why didn't Nina or Chie do anything about Miya or Tomoe, respectively? ===
* At the end of Episode 5, Nina warns Miya that although she doesn't plan on telling anyone about her being responsible for the theft of Arika's uniform, she doesn't like "cowardly acts like that", and "if (Miya) does it again, (she) won't hold anything back". Chie similarly tells Tomoe in Episode 16 that "Shizuru [[Onee-Sama
=== Nina and Sergay after the final episode, after Sergay loses his memory. ===
Putting aside the issues with a girl falling in love with her adoptive father, his getting shot and losing his memory, enabling her to introduce herself to him again without is knowing about their prior relationship raises some questions, the implications of which make this a bit of a [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|wasted plot]], since Nina notes in [[Mai
##Would amnesiac!Sergay be notably different from pre-amnesia!Sergay to no longer be the person Nina loved?
##What would happen if Sergay somehow regains his memories and realizes that Nina has lied to him?
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== Manga ==
=== Just how old are the Dark HiMEs supposed to be, anyway? ===
* If Mai is supposed to be {{spoiler|the mother to the Mashiro twins}}, then shouldn't she look a little older (in her 20s, perhaps)? And yet, her respawned Dark form (as well as the rest of the Dark HiMEs) looks almost exactly the same as she did in the ''[[Mai-HiME (
** The Dark HiMEs are apparently not the real thing, at least not physically. Judging by what happens to them when they die, their bodies are some sort of artificial recreation of the ''Mai-HiME'' cast, with the souls trapped inside providing their powers. So it makes sense that they'd look like those girls did when they were young, rather than what their Otome counterparts look like now; they look like that because they were modeled to look like the HiME when they were at their most famous, which was when they stopped the Obsidian Prince.
=== How old are the characters in general? ===
* While you can generally tell how old a character in [[
Is there a databook or any such source for the manga and/or anime that suggests the character's precise ages?
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