Mai Kawasumi

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Mai Kawasumi
Mai Kawasumi from the original game
Gender:	Female
Birthdate:	January 29, 1981
Age:	17-18
Seiyū:	Yukari Tamura
Height:	167cm (5'6")
Weight:	49kg (108lbs)
Measurements:	89cm - 58cm - 86cm (35" - 23" - 34")
Hair color:	Dark blue
Eye color:	Green

Mai Kawasumi (川澄 舞, Kawasumi Mai^?) is a fictional character from the Japanese visual novel Kanon, voiced by Yukari Tamura. She is a third-year student of the same high school that Yuichi goes to. He met her standing alone in the school building at night, with a sword in her hand. She apparently takes it upon herself to fight and defeat demons at night while the school is deserted. Due to this, she is constantly blamed for accidents because she never denies them, being too sincere to say anything and knowing that no one will believe that there are demons in the school. Her best friend is Sayuri Kurata, the only person besides Yuichi that does not believe that Mai is a dangerous delinquent. Yuichi eventually starts bringing her dinner at the school while she is fighting and during these times Mai begins to warm up to Yuichi.

Mai's idiosyncrasy is her unwillingness to carry on conversation or even to merely utter the meekest of responses when addressed. Due to this, and her reputation as someone who causes trouble, she is most often avoided when at school, and is talked to behind her back. This cold side of her is shown to stem from having very little insight on other people's emotions.

Contents 1 Story 1.1 Prior to meeting Yuichi 1.2 Ten years ago 1.3 Present 2 References

[edit] Story

[edit] Prior to meeting Yuichi

Before Mai met Yuichi or even lived in the town where the story takes place, Mai was living in another town with her mother who was admitted into the hospital with a serious illness. It did not look good for her mother's condition and with her father already gone, Mai would be alone if anything happened to her mother. Mai's mother did not want to see her daughter cry or be unhappy, so she tried to fight the illness as well as she could but knew that she was losing to it. Mai loves animals, and her mother told her that after she got out of the hospital that they could go to the zoo. One day, Mai's mother lies to Mai and tells her that she is feeling much better today and that they can go to the zoo if she wants to. Mai is reluctant to listen to what she is saying, but eventually goes along with it, believing at such a young age that her mother would not lie to her. They do not get far from the hospital before Mai's mother has to rest however, and as Mai's mother falls asleep on a bench outside, Mai starts making a large amount of snow bunnies which are snow balls formed in the shape of an oval with some leaves attached to the top for ears and two rocks or berries as eyes. Mai sets these in front of the bench and when Mai's mother finally awakens, she tells her mother that there is no need to go all the way to the zoo since they have their own private zoo here to enjoy. Perhaps due to this small outing, Mai's mother's condition becomes worse and she is expected to die soon. Mai at the point starts to pray that her mother will be all right and starts to cry on her mother's hand. Miraculously, Mai's mother recovers somewhat by the morning and is soon cured of her sickness.

The explanation of this stems for a magical power Mai has within herself. When she cries, her tears carry incredible healing powers which even has the power to bring things back from the dead. Soon after, the media finds out about this power she beholds and Mai appears on television programs showing how her power works. Before long, Mai starts to get bullied and terrorized from people in town as being a freak, and Mai's mother decides that it would be best if they moved away. The town they move to is the town where the story takes place.

[edit] Ten years ago

Ten years prior to the beginning of Kanon's story, Yuichi was visiting his aunt Akiko Minase's house and was living with her and his cousin Nayuki Minase for the summer break from school. When playing in a field of barley by himself, Yuichi comes upon Mai laying down alone in a small clearing the field. For the rest of the break, Yuichi and Mai play together in the field, playing hide and seek which initially gave Mai the advantage because she was shorter than the barley around her. So as to make it more fair, Yuichi gets some costume bunny ears and places them on Mai's head, which makes it all but impossible for her to hide effectively, but Mai does not mind. When the summer break is coming to a close and Yuichi has to go back home, Mai becomes very distraught due to losing a very close friend only just after meeting with him. Mai makes up the story that demons has started attacking the field of barley and that she needs his help to fight them off. Yuichi tells her that he is sorry but he has no choice but to go back home. Mai tells him that she will wait for his return some day.

[edit] Present

Mai's first appearance once the Kanon story begins is one night at school when Yuichi goes to retrieve some notes that he forgot that belonged to Nayuki. He was coming out of the classroom and spotted Mai in the hallway holding a sword, though when he tried to ask her what she was doing here, she did not say anything. After a demon passes by and Mai tries to slay it, it quickly gets away and when Mai is about to leave, Yuichi stops her and tries to get something out of her. Mai finally replies that she is a demon hunter and leaves after that. When Yuichi finds her at school the next day, he tries talking with her more about last night, though she does not say anything. Soon, Sayuri Kurata shows up whom asks Yuichi to join them for lunch. Afterwards, it is decided that Yuichi will eat lunch with them and does for the rest of Mai's arc.

Before long, Yuichi discovers that Mai has a bad reputation at school due to the events involving the demons. When she is fighting them, many windows get broken, which Mai gets blamed for because she does not deny being involved. This usually leads her to get yelled at a lot by the principal, though not much is ever done about it. Yuichi, wanting Mai's reputation to get better, sees that a ballroom dance is coming up and tells Mai that they should go to it. Sayuri agrees and manages to borrow some expensive dresses for herself and Mai while at the same time lending Yuichi a tuxedo for the event. When the dance begins, everything is going fine and it seems people are getting a new look at Mai but soon a demon starts to attack the dance, destroying many of the windows and dance area. After Sayuri is hurt by the demon, Mai cannot control her anger and goes to get her sword. She comes back and starts to fight the monster in front of everyone at the dance. The demon eventually disappears and Mai's reputation becomes even worse than it was before. After this, the student council president Kuze tried to get Mai expelled from school, but after some quick thinking by Jun Kitagawa, she got off the hook. (In the Toei version, it was Sayuri that saved her by bribing the student council with her joining.)

A few days later, Sayuri tells Yuichi that Mai's birthday is coming up and they decide that a small party between them, including Mai's mother, would be just fine. After buying some presents and getting the food ready, for Mai's birthday, Sayuri phones the Minase house but finds that Yuichi is not there. Knowing that they might be at school, Sayuri goes there to find them but gets attacked by one of the demons. After Sayuri is taken to the hospital, Mai tries to commit suicide but Yuichi stops her just in time and tells her that if she wants to end this, that they should go back to the school and destroy the rest of the monsters. Mai agrees and they go back that same night to finish the job. At this point in the original game, Mai's H-scene occurs in one of the classrooms.

Yuichi soon finds out that Mai has been getting hurt with each successive kill of the demons in the form of strange black marks appearing on her body. After an intense battle with the last remaining demons, Yuichi and Mai manage to destroy them all and as an act of celebration, Mai asks Yuichi to go to buy some beef bowls (Mai's favorite food) for them to eat. When he comes back, he discovers that Mai is no where to be found and suspects that Mai must have wanted him to leave because there was one more demon left to kill. Upon running into the hall to find her, Yuichi is confronted by this demon, though he ultimately sees that it is not a demon but rather a part of Mai's own power that shows him what happened before he met with Mai and what happened after they met ten years ago.

Due to Mai's incredible power to heal things, an adverse affect that she created from this power were the "demons" that she said were attacking the field of barley ten years ago when Yuichi was about to leave the town again. The reason that she was getting hurt after destroying them is because she was killing off parts of her own self. Yuichi tells her that he came back a year later and went to the barley field, but couldn't find her. Eventually the high school where Yuichi attends was built where that field once was, which is why Mai fought the demons there. After Yuichi tries to tell her that it is all over now, Mai stabs herself with the sword and is about to die.

Just then, a fragment of Mai's own power materializes before Yuichi in the form of a young Mai and he reassures her that he will not leave Mai again. Mai's own power saves her and closes the wound she had just inflicted which saves Mai's life. Mai's power believes that now she will be able to accept this power that she has. Before Mai's power leaves sight, she asks Yuichi to call her by the name "Hope" (希望, Kibō^?). Mai is later taken to the hospital where she shares a room with Sayuri and tells Yuichi that she will have to stay out of school until the spring. When spring comes, Mai is able to graduate high school with Sayuri.

[edit] References

Key v • d • e
Kanon	Anime episodes | Characters | Soundtracks
Air	Anime | Characters | Movie | Soundtracks
Clannad	Nagisa Furukawa | Soundtracks
Other games	Planetarian (Albums) | Tomoyo After (Soundtracks) | Little Busters!
Pre-Key games	Dōsei | Moon. | One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e
Related	Key Sounds Label | KineticNovel | Tactics | Visual Art's