(1) I hate estimating anime character ages. Actually, it’s impossible. So I’ll just say Natsuki was about seven when the car went off the cliff. Why? Because that’s a good number. Unless someone has a more solid ref or better arguments as to why one age is better than another (she’s pretty darn young there, I mean–though I don’t exactly have a screenshot of that scene and don’t remember what ep it was in).
However, I realized that working out the time between that event, +3 months coma, and up to the point of meeting Shizuru is more problematic. 7 -> 14 (13 being roughly the age middle school would start)
Seven years of hanging out by herself is an extremely long time for a child. Not only that, but she was certainly orphaned young enough that the state wouldn’t dream about sending her out on her own (no matter what money is involved–I’m assuming a lot that her mom had a trust, though). Foster care? Natsuki really never talked about such things in the anime. What a pain in the ass. Special arrangement? Ugh. (Oh, wait, I feel an idea coming on…*FD)
(2) Easy to write around this, unless I wanted to complicate it via (1). Oops, my finger just cramped thinking about that.
(4) Flashbacks? Hmm. Formatting issue.
(5-6) Got a good deal of material to work with concerning the Japanese schooling system. Happily, as someone reminded me, Fuuka is special, so some exceptions are okay in order.
(I might be outlining Shizuru’s backstory a bit too detailed, but c’mon… she didn’t get any in the anime.)
Re: Research
Not much of Natsuki’s childhood was revealed in the anime in details. This is where the joy of writing a fanfic comes in. Coming up with your own interpretations on how she was raised. However, there are 2 art books- Mai Hime Animation Book 1 and 2. Judging from the pics I saw, it looks like there is a story covering Natsuki’s past before and after her mom died and before she meets Mai. I can’t read japanese so I could be wrong about this. Hopefully somebody here might know about it? This site has a pic of one of the books I’m talking about. http://www.hlj.com/product/AKT13013
–Blitzer–
Re: Research
I was actually going to post scans and ask about those art book pages, but I guess that’s quite a lot of text to go through, too (13 pages of essentially solid text concerning Natsuki’s past, about 4MB–holy crap, that would be a lot of stuff to translate). Two reasons why I wanted this: I consider official art books canon, so less about free interpretation; easier for me as I’m planning plot. Whoo. In any case, if I really decide to only go from animated sources, I suppose the point is moot. ;) I would still be nice to know what those 13 pages said, though…
Re: Research
(Oh yeah, and there’s that page in there showing when Natsuki met Duran for the first time… Neat.)
Re: Research
I’m not sure Natsuki was alone all of that time. Since it was posited that her father was still alive and possibly remarried, she probably stayed with them during the times she wasn’t at boarding school.That makes far more sense and is more credible than her being alone all of that time, don’t you think?
Re: Research
I think her being truly alone all the time is a far stretch as well, but if she stayed with her father/stepmom… (where was it posited exactly?) Maybe they were just indifferent so didn’t bond. Okay, I really want to know what those pages say about Natsuki’s past, so I’ll post them and hope someone is fluent enough just to give a summary. Just so curious… especially that picture of Natsuki cowering from Duran!
Re: Research
Maybe Natsuki and step-mom don’t like each other? Might explain a lot…