- I'd say this is more accurate than a lot of people are willing to admit. Miyu, at one point, IIRC goes to Fuuka Academy which is underwater. It... doesn't get much more specific than that. Why would they uproot the school to another planet and hide it underwater? When just as easily, in the world-ending conflicts that produced the current civilization, the island the school was on could have been covered by rising seas.
- A map of what is very clearly our solar system is shown briefly in Sifr 03 as well.
Let's look at the facts. There are Five Columns; yet only one of them is ever seen doing anything of significance, with another one as her obedient errand girl. Natsuki somehow knew of the yet-to-happen Schwartz attack and summoned Shizuru, who then cut the plane in half (with the girls still inside!) and allowed it to crash into the castle, which in turn allowed Schwartz to infiltrate the construction team with nobody noticing. Natsuki allowed Arika to enroll despite all objections, openly encouraged the rivalry between her and Nina, allowed her to carry the GEM around, turned a blind eye to the contract between Arika and Mashiro, didn't destroy the Harmonium when she had the chance, and finally, when everything was prepared, appointed Nao as the vacant Fourth Column - the one candidate most likely to completely neglect her Otome duties. Natsuki's intention was to provoke Schwartz into attacking Windbloom and then "liberate" it with the sheer overwhelming force of Garderobe's Otome, becoming the "protectors" of the weak Queen and her weak-willed Meister. The one thing that was overlooked was how they could be instantly depowered with one direct hit taken by the Fumi System...
- Possibly, the Black GEM was designed without that particular weakness.
- It does not explain the events in Zwei, though.
- Sergay has a supply of... protection... that he picked up in some foreign land. Or he knows where his limits are.
- Or he just went to the next convenience store to get some rubbers? I mean, they have all this cool tech around, so they sure as hell would come up with rubbers!
- For the purpose of makin a hentai plot without depowering them, I suspect!
The nanomachines do not disintegrate after contact with semen. This would connect with the theory immediately above this one. This claim is merely perpetuated by the unknowing Otome populace; only the nobles and the Columns know the truth. Considering the state of Earl, it's plausible that there would be an Ancient Conspiracy, or not-so-ancient conspiracy, wanting this secret kept, with enforcers to, um, silence anyone wanting to go public and plug leaks. As to why? Well... Well... No Guy Wants an Amazon.
- Alternatively, they need to keep the public convinced that there's an easy way to keep the Otomes in check - a way that, if used, would make their approval rating plummet. A way that prevents the Otome from falling into various relationship pitfalls, helps keep their numbers down, and provides a sick sort of motivation for not getting defeated nor allowing themselves to fall into enemy hands.
- The vulnerability thing is an Informed Attribute that, for all the fuss, is never triggered in the series. An Otome who discovered the truth would either keep it secret or be silenced, presumably by Garderobe.
- It makes so much sense. You have to wonder if the show's writers had the same thing in mind — after all, they could easily have shown us a depowered Otome, but they never did.
- But they did. Arika's mom right at the start. She had lost her Otome powers and thus couldn't win against Rad.
- There is another good reason for this conspiracy. As events in the show have proved, an Otome who has borne a child can be used as a new Shinso to create a whole new line of Otome independent of Garderobe. Even if the nanomachines were still fine, the original designers of the Otome System probably built in a safety device in the GE Ms to prevent entire clans or worse, nations, of Otome springing up each with hundreds of families centred around a Shinso who acts as their limiter much like Fumi does.
- This is rather improbable, Garderobe isn't powerful enough to have their spies covering every nook and cranny of this planet, because it would take near omniscience to keep track of any Otome and their sexual life or secret programs in some far-away lab to make their own Otome the sexy way. Sooner or later someone would've been bound to find out (e.g. some Otome having sex in secret and without rubber and noticing, that that her powers are still workin), some secrets are just too big to be kept.
- But they did. Arika's mom right at the start. She had lost her Otome powers and thus couldn't win against Rad.
- Allow me to throw out a possibility; they do not, in fact, disintegrate. They can't be used to form a robe any more, but still allow for the passive powers Otome get without the robe. Which is why pre-nanite-infusion Arika can still outpace Nina on foot and manifest a pseudo-robe for a few seconds when Nina grabs her.
There are three known restrictions on Otome:
- There must be a contract with a non-Otome using a GEM as an intermediary.
- There must be certification from that non-Otome to activate each use.
- The Otome must be a female virgin.
In the show, two of these restrictions are temporarily bent or broken.
Types one and two are bent by the GEMs themselves multiple times, most obviously in ep.1 when Arika, Nina and Mashiro are falling. Arika's GEM manages to make a robe before shutting down. Various other times, GEMs are projecting force-fields, activating nearby tech, or forcibly throwing their owners out of harm's way (Nina, Zwei 3.)
Type 2 is temporarily lifted by the Admin Star in the last TV episode, allowing all contracted Otome (students contracted to the school Founder) to materialize.
It's not hard to imagine that, when these restrictions were planned out, the decision to restrict otome tech to virgin females was made, and it was arranged to have the nanites self-destruct on contact with semen and allow antibodies against them to be created. Who would design machines that break and cause a cascade failure on contact with so common a substance without some purpose? It's like StarForce.
Remember, the nanites essentially take over immuno-defense of the otome from the immune system. Therefore, if otome nanites didn't self-destruct on contact with semen, then any child of a (female) otome would also be an otome, and there could be uncontrolled proliferation.
Anyone attempting to remove the restrictions from the nanites would be guilty of violating the otome non-proliferation treaty and subject to death.
- For all we know, an Otome may have sex before being implanted with nanomachines.
- But considering the age that one generally becomes a student Otome at... that is something only a monster would do.
- In Sifr 3, Rena overrides restrictions 1 and 2 by reprogramming her GEM. It displays "Warning: unauthorized access," followed by "Forced Robe activation" during the materialization process. This confirms that those restrictions are indeed implemented in firmware on the GEMs themselves.
Rena's hidden power seems to activate just in time to protect her from lethal damage. In Sifr 2, Rena is seen blasted away from the hotel by the android, and lands softly in a crater held aloft by wings. In Sifr 3, Rena is flung into the moon and knocked unconscious momentarily, during this brief moment, as the android goes in for the kill, the wings appear again, and a large translucent arm wielding a bow shoots at the android. Also, Rena overrides the Blue Sky Sapphire's authorization restrictions by calling out to Artemis, and again with the wings.
- The manga indicates that Mai may have been the previous queen of Windbloom and mother to the Mashiro twins.
- The manga is a very Alternate Continuity, sharing little more than the overall idea for the setting with the anime, so I wouldn't draw conclusions. By the way, the first queen of Windbloom is never named, we just see her briefly in a flashback in S.ifr. If she is HiME Mashiro, this only means that Otome Mashiro is subject to the same massive freaky unexplained coincidence that resulted in all other HiME lookalikes in Otome, even when they aren't their blood descendants. In any case I don't think the creators gave this issue much thought — they were just throwing in references for references' sake.
- Quite possible. I get the impression that this was the conclusion we were supposed to make. Which makes Nagi's forced attempt at marriage even more disgusting.
She's using this spiral-magic (maki-maki, could be Uzumaki fuinjutsu altered to utilize the energy generated by the Otome or ambient energy of their world rather than chakra, which could be something similar) and they are calling her "Uzumaki" ("spiral-head" in the English dub).
And look at her floating hair, just like Kushina-sama!!
After all, The Usurper is a Possession Sue.
Yuna originated from the Hime star, and has the remains of the Obsidian Lord inside it. Eventually, he shot down to the planet and began to finish what he started. This is why Yuna was able to bring back CHILDs. As for Sergey, he became a vessel, which resulted in his radically different behavior. The Obisidan Lord in this body was also able to summon the Dark Himes.
From the beginning, her goal was to attain the Obsidian Lord’s power to use for her own selfish ends. She ruthlessly won the previous Carnival for this purpose, but it didn’t work out so well. To fix that, she devised a plan that would allow her to gain control of his body. In the anime, Mashiro succeeds thanks to the efforts of Mai and her friends, and somehow this led to the events of Mai-Otome. She may have caused the wars in the backstory by trying to seize power. By the time of the main story in Mai-Otome, she was sealed away with the Obsidian Lord in the ancient superweapon Yuna. Eventually, she returned, and used the Obsidian Lord’s power to pilot Fumi and Yuna as her weapons seeing as she can’t fight herself. In the manga, she doesn’t exactly establish full control of the Obsidian Lord, but forms a partnership of some sort. Then the Obsidian Lord is reborn into Sergey. Mashiro’s failure to wipe out “Sergey’s” will is what allows him to betray her in the end.
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