Leiopelma

I wonder if Mai is still anatomically human in Variable Heart. In Remix Heart we saw that she still had a heart, so I presume that she did, but at the time she was still a fusion of a human and a grimoire. If she has fully become a grimoire in Variable Heart then that may have changed. Hazama is a grimoire and his electrocution sprite shows that he has no skeleton. Izanami also looks human, and presumably had been human at one point, but she looks like a doll. I hope that Mai hasn't been altered to such an extent by the grimoires she has come in contact with, though I guess we'll have to wait until images of her electrocution sprites are released to know what has happened to her.

Interesting fact regarding Mai's birthday, which is on the 4th of April: It is situated exactly between the 3rd of March, which is Girl's Day in Japan, and the 5th of May, which today is Children's Day but used to be Boy's Day in Japan. Perhaps this is the reason that date was chosen as Mai's birthday.

I was thinking about the ages of the characters and I think we can actually determine the exact age of those that attended the Military Academy using this timeline. The Japanese academic year begins on the 1st of April and ends on the 31st of Match, while the school entrance cut-off date is the 2nd of April. Students born from that date onward have to start the following academic year. The Military Academy functions like a Japanese school in a number of ways, e.g. in its sports festivals, which makes sense since Blazblue is a Japanese game primarily aimed at a Japanese audience. This must apply to the academic year as well since it's the only way for Noel leaving the Academy 6 months early on her 3rd year to make sense, considering she left in 2198 but started in 2196. Mai, Makoto and Tsubaki all started at the same time as Noel in 2196, while Jin started two years before them. Therefore the girls would have had to have been 15 on the 1st of April 2196, while Jin on the 1st of April 2194. The games take place from late December 2199 to January 2200. Jin was born on the 14th of February, which is before the cutoff, meaning he must be 20 at the time of the games. Makoto and Mai were born on the 2nd of April and the 4th of April respectively, which is after the cutoff, meaning that they must be 19. Tsubaki was born on the 14th of March, which is before the cutoff, meaning she must be 18. In summary, we can conclude that at the time of the games Jin is 20, Makoto and Mai are 19 and Tsubaki is 18. (And we already knew that Noel is 5.)

I was thinking about the relationship between Mai and Relius and came up with a few ideas. We see in Mai's arcade mode that she hates Relius more than anyone else. This is interesting, since we have only seen the two meet once up to that point back in Remix Heart and while Mai thought Relius was absolutely terrifying, she didn't have a reason to hate him. However we also saw that Relius found Mai's soul to be intriguing; Relius let Mai go at that point because he was curious to see how her soul would develop over time. Presumably he could see that Mai's soul was in the process of changing and he was curious about what the final result would be; if he had captured Mai on the spot, then he wouldn't have been able to do so. This raises the possibility that Relius captured Mai at a later point and possibly imprisoned or experimented upon her. That would explain her hatred of him. I certainly hope that this isn't what happened to Mai, but since we don't yet know what Mai did in the two and a half years between Variable Heart and Central Fiction, that is a possibility that we cannot yet exclude.

Not exactly. Mai in Remix Heart was drawn looking shorter than Makoto, who's 163 cm, obviously taller than Noel, who's 157 cm, and about as tall or slightly taller than Tsubaki, who's 160 cm. That made it possible to deduce that Mai was in the 160-162 cm range as far as height goes. Mai was the second tallest among the NOL girls, but that doesn't mean she was very tall. Though considering that the average height for Japanese women is 159 cm, Mai is still above average. PS: According to Zedar, Kajun said that Mai lost her "super taste power", not her ability to copy and paste abilities.

And her birthday is the 4/4. Considering the association between 4 and death in East Asia, I hope nothing will come of it.

I was expecting that, since the opposite would have been completely out of character for her. Mai was always willing to endanger herself in order to help her friends in Remix Heart. Also, when a grimoire showed her a vision where her friends were battling each other in order to fulfill her desires, Mai said that she didn't want that to happen and rejected the grimoire. Mai would never sacrifice one of her friends to have a wish granted.

I ran Mai's personal information from these scans through google translate. Let me know if there is a mistake: Name: Mai Natsume Height: 162 cm, Weight: 51 kg, Birthday: April 4, Blood type: A, Hometown: 3rd Hierarchical City of Iwasu. Hobbies: Strange organism appreciation, Likes: Reptiles (especially chameleons), Dislikes: Sour things.

I can think of a few ways to work Mai into the story. Mai was drawn to an incomplete Murakumo in Variable Heart. Maybe the fact she had a fragment of the Azure inside her for a time or that she is now a grimoire has given her a connection to the Murakumos or to Amaterasu. And of course there's the Kokonoe connection as well. Kajun decided to link up Mai with Kokonoe in Variable Heart, so perhaps she'll come into play in the story because of that. Though I suppose there's also the possibility that Mai will come in simply because she wants to help her friends, but Makoto has already done that. PS: I hope that Mai will get a vocal version of her theme. Saori Hayami is a great singer.

The revelations in this chapter are certainly interesting. Mai was said to still have her super-taste ability at the conclusion of Remix Heart, so does that mean that the removal of her super-taste ability and the turning of her body into a grimoire happened between the two series? Seems that Team Remix Heart was ultimately successful in curing Mai of her super-taste. (Unless they decided to retcon that the removal of the Azure fragment by Seifer at the end of Remix Heart was what radically altered the nature of Mai's grimoire, but that isn't necessary for the story.) I wonder what the effects of Mai's new grimoire will be. When Mai had become the Intermediary Grimoire she was able to copy abilities and pass them on to other people. The Grimoire of White Pages sounds somewhat similar since it too apparently is able to store and then manifest abilities.

All the Noxes are accounted for, so if they wanted Mai to have something unique they needed to give her something else. I wouldn't say Legacy Weapons are more special, they're simply different. PS: Zedar has also provided a description of what's said in the Variable Heart glossary. Looks like they're using it to give readers of the magazine it's published in who are unfamiliar with the Blazblue setting an idea about some of its core concepts: http://amatsumugi89.tumblr.com/post/147137695833/unlike-the-first-chapter-of-variable-heart-the

Thanks a lot for posting the second chapter Kurushii. Not really; Mai got seriously pissed off with Seifer in chapter 23 of Remix Heart. I do like the fact that while Mai is very kind, she still has limits and won't hesitate to use force if necessary rather than being a shrinking violet.

In case anyone is interested, I found a summary of the second chapter on this webpage: http://amatsumugi89.tumblr.com/post/147097420903/variable-heart-chapter-2-simple-summary-it-begins That site also has a summary of the first chapter: http://amatsumugi89.tumblr.com/post/145612687283/a-simple-summary-of-the-first-chapter-of-variable

It being a Legacy Weapon doesn't mean that it came from the world of Xblaze. They may well exist in the Blazblue world as well since there is quite a bit of overlap between those two worlds.

Yeah, that's true. I had assumed that the manga will cover the period of Mai's disappearance after her graduation, but this plotline could potentially be resolved without Mai leaving the academy early. I agree that Makoto would have been more concerned about Mai if she had disappeared early, but her comments indicate that Mai did not do so and did in fact graduate normally. Therefore this incident was either resolved, at least temporarily, or they have decided to retcon what Makoto had said. The prominence that Mei-Fang has in the title page indicates that she will be a very important character in Variable Heart so my guess is that she is the main adversary. So I guess we have the following possibilities: This case is resolved now, Mai returns to school and her disappearance after graduation has nothing to do with Mei-Fang. Mei-Fang pulls back for a while and comes after Mai again after she graduates, tying her disappearance to this incident. Makoto's comment in Chronophantasma is retconned and Mai goes on the run at this point. Regarding the other academy girls, as long as the manga takes place during their school years they can participate in the story freely. Though the fact that they are not present in the title page does indicate that they will not have a prominent role in this series. Indeed, that could be intentional. She does appear to enjoy unsettling Mai.

It's interesting to compare what Mai looked like at the start of Remix Heart and the start of Variable Heart. She looks much more self-confident and at ease in the latter, which shows how much she matured over the course of her series:

Thank you very much for posting this chapter. Is the following an accurate summary of what happens in the first chapter? Comments regarding this chapter:

This makes it sound like Mai disappeared after graduating because the Zero Squadron was after her. By the way, it looks like Kajun and Shiori joined Mai after leaving the academy. Which makes sense since it was never specified that they parted ways after graduating and it's better to reuse characters introduced in the previous manga instead of introducing and developing an entirely new set of characters for no reason:

Thank you very much to both of you. I was hoping that this new manga would have its raws made available and then get scanlated.

No. Mai, Makoto and Tsubaki are all two years younger than Jin and graduated two years after he did from the academy. The Ikaruga civil war was already over by that point.

I don't see that happening. The Kagura side-story in CPE showed that the Ikaruga civil war ended shortly after Jin graduated, and that happened two years before Mai's graduation.

Here's a link to a Famitsu article that briefly talks about the new manga and shows Mai's new design: http://www.famitsu.com/news/201605/09105394.html

I'm very happy to learn that there will be a sequel to Remix Heart. I loved Mai as a character so I'm looking forward to seeing the continuation of her story. I think Sumeragi had said in an interview that Seifer was meant to unambiguously die but that because Sumeragi liked him, Mori allowed his fate to be left slightly ambiguous. I don't think he'll be coming back. Maybe we can assume that Hazama got rid of the body in order to conceal the fact he was at the academy and stole the grimoire.

Didn't Naoto initially identify Izanami as Saya and only stopped thinking that because Izanami told him that she's not Saya Terumi? (My guess is that both of them have the same soul even if they're not exactly the same person.)

Saya Terumi was captured by Relius in BE. The fact a lookalike of her suddenly appeared alongside Relius is pretty suspicious. Maybe Izanami says she's not Saya Terumi because she's using the other Saya's body. I guess the story mode will explain the exact relationship, but I'm pretty confident that Izanami is at the very least a product of Saya Terumi.