The Mai Akasaki Mystery Flower - Solved?
feat. a mini-dissection of Mai's name
Hi! I have seen a few people here guessing what the flower on Maiās tattoo is (mostly camellias iirc)⦠and I think I have the answer!
I think itās Ochna integerrima, which is also known as the yellow Mai flower. (Hoa mai vĆ ng is itās Vietnamese name). Yes, the answer may be that simple: the Mai flower is literally the Mai flower. It seems to match her tattoo and is a very similar shade to her eyes.
(Note: I found most of this information in February last year when I just searched āmai flowerā on google and saw the results and was like āhuh?ā and went down a rabbit hole from there lol.)
The flower has great significance to the Vietnamese Lunar New year, or Tįŗæt, short for Tįŗæt NguyĆŖn ÄĆ”n. They are used to decorate homes and are in full bloom during Tįŗæt, which is around late January to early or mid-February and lasts for around 7-10 days, which also lines up with Maiās birthday (February 1st).
(please correct me if I am wrong, I got this information from Google and I am not Vietnamese and have never celebrated this holiday myself!)
There is a legend associated with the flower as well, which I believe might help explain what happened to Mai Akasaki.
https://botanicgardens.uw.edu/about/blog/2022/01/31/lunar-new-years-and-the-legend-of-the-mai-flower/
The following is copy-pasted from the above website:
"The Mai flower is named after a heroine in Vietnamese lore. Mai, a young warrior set off with her father to slay a giant serpent which had been terrorising their village. Maiās mother gave her a bright yellow Ć”o dĆ i (traditional Vietnamese dress) to wear when she returned, so her mother could see her coming. Sadly, Mai ended up sacrificing her life to save her father from the serpent. Impressed by her heroic feats, the Gods made her a saint and granted her the ability to return home to her parents during the Lunar New Year celebration. After her parents passed, Mai transformed into a tree in front of her family home which blossomed with yellow flowers every year. Over time, the villagers would collect branches from this tree and decorate their homes for Lunar New Year."
And here are two other websites I looked at when researching this story:
https://scootersaigontour.com/legend-of-yellow-apricot-blossom-and-peach-blossom-on-vietnamese-new-year/
https://heritagevietnamairlines.com/en/the-tale-of-the-yellow-mai-flowers/
This leads me to believe that Mai sacrificed herself trying to protect the cast from a large threat, perhaps the mastermind/MonoTV, or sacrificed herself during the HPA operation that @1moreff-creator mentions in their post Everything We Know About Mai Akasaki + So Many Theories ā @1moreff-creator on Tumblr. (this post is basically the Mai bible, please check it out!)
Additionally, MonoTVās Mai-related secret quote āItās all your faultā, and the second anniversary code with the same message, and some of the other Mai secret quotes talking about her in past tense imply that she has already passed, and that the cast is the reason why, which could mean she sacrificed herself for them... so I don't think she is the mastermind!
Her surname can also potentially provide us with clues.
āakaā means red, the same colour as her hair
āsaā means bloom or blossom, a reference to her flower tattoo
ākiā means hope, and why that is important is pretty self-explanatory if you've seen anything Danganronpa related
and "saki" means blossom of hope
(These are all Japanese meanings. I just used google for these translations, I do not know Japanese).
This means that her sharing the same name as this flower is likely not just a coincidence, but a deliberate choice by DRDTdev.
Submitted Surnames with "red" in Meaning - Behind the Name
Tenma Saki | Project SEKAI Wiki | Fandom
(yes I just cited the project sekai wiki as a source in my drdt theory, I don't know how I got here either)
The only problems with this theory that her flower is a Mai flower (that I know of) is probably the Literature Girl Insane flowers and the flowers in the bonus episodes being different colours. For the LGI flowers they may just be different flowers altogether that are there to symbolise something else, or a different aspect of Mai... I'm not sure. And the bonus episode flowers could just be coloured differently for aesthetic purposes.
tl;dr The flower on Mai's tattoo may actually be called 'Mai', it suggests she sacrificed herself and probably isn't the mastermind and her surname reinforces the idea that her name choice is not a coincidence.
This is my first tumblr post so apologies in advance if anything about the formatting is weird! Also critisism is appreciated, I would love to hear your thoughts on this :D