Manabe Minami

[takekaze]

Maeda Aki

Name: Manabe Minami, which, in the western way would be Minami Manabe
Age: 16
Gender: female
Orientation: heterosexual
Year/Profession: junior
Sport: swimming
Hair: dark brown/black, style varies, usually it's at shoulder length and open, there's nothing eccentric or unusual about her normal hairstyles
Eyes: brown
Height: 5'1”
Body: 99 lbs, on the first look Minami may seem to be somewhat petite, but that's not really the case. Since Minami has been on the swimming team in her native school for several years she's rather well trained. Legs, arms and shoulders are well muscled, but usually her clothes and her height simply hide that fact. Minami has no tan at all, she's not really a friend of tanning as it is, thus her skin is rather white and certainly not fitting into the “yellow” sterotype.
Tattoos/Piercings/Scars: None

Likes:
+ her sister
+ swimming (water in general)
+ penguins
+ archery
+ independence
+ old war movies (Patton, The Longest Day, Battle at the Bulge, etc)
+ Jimmy Stewart (she's quite the fan)
+ cosplay (Chise from Saikano and Ayanami Rei from NGE are her favorites)
+ her violin

Dislikes:
- being mocked for the things she likes
- spinach
- politics
- pacifists
- horror movies
- rap & hip hop
- soft drinks (stuff like Coke, etc) & coffee
- horses (they stink)
- attention

Strengths:
+ intelligent
+ strong willed
+ fluent in English
+ decent violinist (she has been playing ever since kindergarten, her mother believes that to be Mina's future)
+ has the ability to focus on a task and forgetting everything around her while doing so

Weaknesses:
- sex (she doesn't like to talk about it, for her it doesn't exist, any discussion about it will make her look stupid, stay away with it!)
- penguins
- Jimmy Stewart (pretty much the only guy who makes her swoon)
- donuts (crème filled!)
- too curious for her own good


Habit(s): when nervous or extremely focused she usually touches the tip of her left incisor with her tongue; she also talks to herself on occasion.

Pet Peeve(s): Pacifists. They just annoy the hell out of her. Sex. Plain and simple. There are more important things than how to get laid by who. Really.


Fears:
- Jellyfish, though she'd never admit that she's afraid of them. There's no particular reason for this, Mina just thinks they're totally disgusting.
- Failure, that is the one thing nagging on her. Being considered a failure by her sister would be the worst thing ever for her.
- not being able to play her violin anymore

Personality: Ever since she can remember she has been looking up to her older sister. That said, Mina values the opinion of her sister more than that of anybody else. She admires her sister for her strength and determination, but also thinks that her sister is a lot more beautiful than she is. On the outside Mina may appear to be the good girl from next door, and basically, that's what she is. Rebellion against certain norms is out of question for her. Mina is not a rebel, but rather a conformist.

That said, she also prefers keeping herself out of the spotlight. Attention makes her feel uncomfortable. Ironically, since she's been practicing violin for over ten years, she has to face this unwanted attention every now and then. It only really works, because Minami can hide behind the violin in that particular case.

She's not necessarily an anime and manga fan. After all, she only likes certain story lines (like NGE or Saikano). Being called otaku is something she considers offensive.

Her relations with the other members of her family have somewhat shaped her as well. She's rather distant to her father, after all he's usually not around. Always busy, always occupied with something connected to work. Her mother is somewhat of a hockey mom, though maybe “public music performance mom” may be a better term to describe her. From her close family the only one Mina really seems to get along with is her sister Kazumi, who broke out of their mother's ideas and joined the National Defense Academy right after high school. Minami has considered pulling something similar, but she's too much of a coward -or conformist- to try it.

Minami and Kazumi are somewhat similar, yet also different, of course. Minami is more the type who tries to please everyone, while her older sister, after a while, would rather put her foot down.

When it comes down to relationships with others, that is close relationships, then Mina's somewhat helpless. She has no experience in that area, never even had a boyfriend. How would that have worked anyway, especially considering that she spent her junior high and high school years in an environment where males were outlawed? However, she considers the trend of “over-sexing” everything, which has even spread into Japan's schools, to be disgusting.

Just like her older sister, Minami has also been heavily influence by their grandparents and their experiences in the Pacific War. From them she has learned that the freedom and democracy Japan enjoys today has been paid for with the blood of millions. While she knows that her grandparents have experienced horrible things during the war (her grandfather had served in China and finally on Okinawa as an officer, while her grandmother had first been a teacher and later a nurse, also on Okinawa), she's not a pacifist. Pacifism doesn't defend freedom. Rather does it invite dictators to take advantage of the pacifists. Only a strong army can defend freedom and democracy. That's how she sees it. That's why pacifists annoy her.

The ongoing fight between her parents over their divorce has left her on the outside. Minami isn't sure what to think of it. And she has no idea where she would prefer to be. With her mother in Tokyo? Or her father in New York? She's trying not to think of it.

History:
Minami was born in Tokyo into a family that first appeared as such in the mid to late 1500s. Originally coming from Echigo province and being low ranking Uesugi retainers, the founder of the family, Manabe Yoshinobu, left the province -due to personal “entanglements” with the daughter of his direct liege lord, Murakami Osome- and eventually landed Kasuza province further south, together with Osome. At first the Manabe served the Kasuza daimyo, but eventually ended up following Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, who made the Manabe daimyo of Mikawa province and hatamoto, with an annual income of more than 500,000 koku, effectively elevating them among the richest families in Japan, with only the Tokugawa-Matsudaira Connection and the Maeda being richer.

For the next some 250 years the Manabe continued to rule Mikawa province. With the end of the Edo Period and the fall of the Tokugawa government, which was replaced by the Emperor ruling the country, the Manabe split up in two branches. One followed the Emperor and the leader was even made baron -due to the fact that the family had been daimyo. The other branch left all of this behind and went into industry. The barons eventually died out and even the industrialist line of the family faced extinction during the Pacific War. The only one to survive was Manabe Kojiro, Minami's grandfather. After the war he married Kurokawa Ryoko, a former teacher, Communist and military nurse. Both had survived Okinawa.

When Minami was finally born, she already had an older sister, Kazumi. Right from her very early days Minami was looking up to Kazumi. The Big Sister was, of course, older, bigger, stronger, but also showed strong determination towards her goals. Minami soon began idolizing her older sister, which -in exchange- made Kazumi somewhat uncomfortable.

The younger one also had very close contact to her grandparents, especially her grandmother. Once she got older Minami started with her questions. She knew nothing about history yet she had heard one or two things. She was about six or seven when she asked her grandmother about a photograph that showed a young woman -her grandmother- and ten more women in the uniform of nurses of the Imperial Army together with a group of schoolgirls and their teachers. One of the women was her grandaunt, who had also survived the battle of Okinawa. The other nurses had all been killed, together with 31 of the 35 girls. The girls had been part of the Shiraume Corps, which had been similar to the famous Himeyuri, just not as famous, not as well known, mainly because -unlike the Himeyuri, who had been recruited from the top schools of Okinawa- the girls had been just normal girls from normal schools.

Minami learned about the war just then and soon she came to the conclusion that it had been wrong and that the emperor had been an idiot. But Minami would later also conclude -by that time she would already be in high school- that the freedom and democracy of today had been paid for with the blood of the people on the photograph, not to mention her own grandmother's blood, after all she had lost her left leg on Okinawa.

When Minami was four, before her first quest into history, she was urged by her mother to learn how to play an instrument. Minami eventually decided to go for the violin, since it wasn't as massive as a piano. After that decision Minami was put into a Suzuki group, which she hated from day one. Nevertheless she spent almost three years in it before breaking out of it. She preferred individual lessons rather than following the herd and eventually her resistance against the Suzuki method proved her right.

At the age of six she enrolled in one of the most prestigious elementary schools in Japan and remained there for six years. She made a couple of friends, just like everybody else. In fact, Minami considered herself to be absolutely average. However, in her last year she managed to piss off some of the parents of her classmates by dragging her knowledge about the Pacific War into the history lesson. All those horrible details she knew about Okinawa upset some of the other parents -usually mothers who were bored at home. The situation was eventually resolved by Minami's grandmother herself.

After elementary school Minami passed the exams for Shirakiku Girls' Academy in Otaki, Nagano prefecture. It was, quite literally, in the ass end of the world. A small village in the Japanese alps, which had barely over 1,000 inhabitants. But the Shirakiku wasn't just any boarding school. Originally it had been located in Tokyo, founded in the early days of the Meiji government in 1879, and was designated to be a learning institute for the daughters of the Empire's elite. But in the late 1920s the school was moved to the new location because some people in charge thought that the influence by Western sources -which seemed to be rampant in Tokyo- was not good for young daughters of high class families. Thus the school was moved to Otaki. It remained there until the early 1980s, when it was finally closed down. The system was deemed unfitting for a modern society.

However, a bit over ten years later, the school was reopened. There was demand for such an institution.

When Minami entered the school -junior high and high school were on the same compound, but separated- she had heard rumors about how strict the school was. However, the teachers in charge of junior high school were rather easygoing. The rules were strict and were also enforced, but the teachers managed to keep up a civilized society, even though the intellectual workload for the girls was massive.

Things, however, changed drastically when Minami finished junior high after three years and moved on to high school. Again she had to pass the exams, Shirakiku didn't take everyone, they only allowed the brightest and smartest to join, and Minami actually expected high school to be like junior high.

Boy, had she been wrong.

Shirakiku High School was... different.

The teachers never interfered with discipline problems or anything similar. No, that was left to the third year students, those who were about to graduate. The students were allowed to keep a basic democracy, which lead to the formation of the Students' Council, a group of nine girls in the third year, who were to be elected by their fellow students on the last weekend in their second year.

So far so good.

But the problem was, that the Council usually abused its powers. Third year students didn't do any menial tasks, they focused solely on preparations for the entrance exams of the country's elite universities. Second year students were in charge of the different departments, but it was the first year girls who had to do all the dirty work. To make things worse first year students were not allowed to wear the latest Shirakiku uniform (Minami had still worn the old beige in junior high, the new one was different, with dark purple skirts and grey blazers), instead they had to wear the outdated sailor style uniforms. In the first semester the scarf they'd use was red, in the second it would be white. Any privileges won in the second semester could be removed by a third year student at once, then the first year girl would have to wear the red scarf again. First years also had to hand in their cell phones and had restricted phone time.

The Students' Council also operated the hall monitors, which were recruited exclusively from the third year. The hall monitors had a nickname, Kempeitai, after the feared military police of the Pacific War.

The teachers -exclusively female, the only men allowed on campus were fathers and brothers of students during visiting time and the caretaker- would only get involved if things would go out of hand. But that had never happened. Not even once. Parents usually never complained either and often dismissed any complaints by their daughters as whining and a refusal to grow up.

It was, simply put, pure fascism, or so it seemed.

Minami soon caught the attention of Ishihara Atsuko, head of the Students' Council. While Minami had always been a conformist there was something on her that brought Atsuko's wrath upon her. Bullying, humiliation, it wasn't something that was exclusively a problem at Shirakiku. Plenty of other schools across Japan had the same problem. At Shirakiku it seemed just a bit worse than in other places, because the school was, virtually, cut off from the “civilized” world. Otaki was a small village with the average age around 60 years. The school's compound was some 15 miles outside the village, hugging the mountains.

Minami was humiliated and bullied, but she wasn't the only one. The whole concept was rather easy to follow. Fascism? Not really. Of course, it seemed to be fascism, but in the end it was more like bootcamp. Shirakiku only took the best of the best, the entrance exams were considered to be the most strict and toughest in the country. And only the best graduated. The school could boast with reaching the highest success rating in entrance exams throughout Japan. And that had a reason. Discipline. Discipline that was drilled into the girls day and night. Junior high was lenient, almost easy going compared to high school at Shirakiku. What the third year students achieved with their bullying was that the first year girls worked together, they became a team, they learned to use their abilities to the best extent. And, eventually, they would be third year students doing the same to first year girls.

Interestingly Shirakiku had never had even one single case of suicide. The reason for that was simple: the first year girls worked as a team. None of them was standing alone. They held on to each other in order to brave their enemies. They learned to give their best, no matter the circumstances.

It was something that Minami didn't understand until her last days in the first year.

And the system worked. Graduates often joined the same universities and formed successful research teams. Success proved the system right.

For Minami, though, the first year was horrible. She was used to cleaning up the classroom and dealing with toilets, after all, that was required in every school. But playing servant and coolie for the third year students... Now that was a different thing. Still, she never rebelled. Instead she focused on finishing her tasks and helping her roommates. The only thing was that Atsuko was bullying her. It even lead to an incident in the second semester, when Atsuko almost broke Minami's collarbone with a bokken.

Minami finally finished her first year and went on to the second year (where she qualified for Shirakiku's String Quartet and even the swimming team). Meanwhile, her parents were close to divorce, something that both Minami and Kazumi had been oblivious to. But how could they have known anyway? Minami was at Shirakiku, far away from Tokyo and her sister had been busy first with the National Defense Academy and then with the Air Officer Candidate School, also away from Tokyo. Even during their days back home they hadn't seen their father that often, for he was usually busy and occupied with work.

In fact, Minami didn't learn of the problems in her parents' marriage until her father moved to New York to take over leadership of his company's office there. And she only found out about it, because she was given the chance to take part in an exchange student project. As it was, Minami had always been planning to spend a year in a foreign country, just like her sister had done it -Kazumi had spent a year in Texas in her second year in high school.

So now she was given the chance to do it. Earlier wouldn't have been possible anyway, first year students were not qualified for such projects. It brought Minami into an uncomfortable situation. Her father in the US, her mother in Tokyo. On the day she boarded the aircraft to New York -a journey that would eventually lead her to the prestigious Pembroke Academy, the divorce was already underway. The question was, who would be Minami's guardian? And... would the one year away from home as an exchange student turn into a permanent situation? After all, would her father win the coming mudfights and smear campaigns then Minami would, most likely, stay with him in the US.

Family:
--- Father: Manabe Masahiro (59), Toyota Motor Corporation, took over leadership of Toyota Motor North America headquarters in NYC earlier this year
--- Mother: Manabe Yukie (49), housewife
--- Sister: Manabe Kazumi (23), cadet at Air Officer Candidate School in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture
-- Grandmother: Manabe Ryoko (93), retired, former elementary school teacher and army nurse.
-- Uncle: Manabe Hiroshi (54), Colonel, JASDF, Air Traffic Control Service Group (used to fly F-15Js as part of the 201st Squadron, 2nd Air Wing, Chitose Air Base, in his younger years)

Status: single
List Classes:
English/Literature
Advanced Math
Chemistry
Geography
Physical Education
Computer Science
Electronics
Home Economics


Your Name: I am the Penguin, fear me
Other Characters: none
Experience: a couple of years; if you really must know it's been 20 years since I started RPing

[[jo]anna riley]

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