My-HiME (TV)

The Kanji in this title translates as "Dancing" and hime means "Princess", but this series has nothing to do with dancing. In this case, Mai is the main characters name and HiME stands for: Highly-Advanced Materialising Equipment.

Natsuki contacts her informant in a club called Rorschach, named after the ink-blot psychiatric tests.

In Japanese mythology, Kagutsuchi (the name of Mai's Child) refers to the last son of the gods Izanagi and Izanami. In ancient texts he apparently has three names, roughly translating to "Flaming Man Fire-God", "Bright Man Fire-God", and "Fire-God of the Smell of Flames". "Kagutsuchi" derives his name, for the most part, from the third name. According to the myth, Kagutsuchi burned Izanami his mother to death in childbirth, and Izanagi his father in rage slew Kagutsuchi with the legendary sword "Ame no Ohabari". From Kagutsuchi's blood, eight gods were born, and from his corpse, eight additional gods were born.

Yatagarasu, the raven-like Child, is named for a three-legged crow-like creature in Japanese mythology. Legend has it that when first emperor Jinmu's army was lost in the mountains between Kumano and Yamato, the Yatagarasu guided them safely to their destination. The legendary bird is the bird used as the symbol for Japan's Soccer Association.

Mai works at a restaurant called "Lindenbaum" which is German and means "linden tree".

Regarding Shizuru's child : Kiyohime was a beautiful princess who fell in love and offered herself to a traveling monk named Anchin. He accepted, in spite of knowing that he won't marry her, so when Kiyohime understood that she had been cheated, she transformed into a giant snake and chased him. Anchin took refuge in the temple of Dojoji, and hid under a bell. Kiyohime wrapped herself around it, melting it and killing both herself and Anchin.

The word "maihime" means (temple) dance.

Ikusahime (戦姫) literally means “Battle Princess” or “Warrior Princess.”

- Nina from Mai-Otome (The sequel) is sitting next to Mai in school. You can see her very clearly in ep2 (after around 6min). - Arika (maincharacter from Mai-Otome) is (as another post is saying) running behind Mai, Natsuki and Mitoko in the ending scene in the last episode.

"Mai Hime" can be literally translated as "Dancing Princess", for further clarification, see Nagi's dialogue in the final episode.

About Takumi going to the USA for a transplant: most transplants were virtually illegal in Japan until 1997, when brain death was recognized as legal death. This late introduction was in part due to the opposition of various religious organizations that call organ extraction from brain-dead people murder (no, it’s not only in the US where medicine and religion clash). Transplants have become slowly more common as more people have started to carry donor cards, but organ availability is still much lower than in Western countries –between 1997 and 2003 there were a mere 23 transplant operations carried out. Children under 15 are still banned from donating, and families still routinely travel abroad for transplants on their children.

The lead character of My-Otome (TV), Arika Yumemia, does a very brief walk on (or run through) just before the ending credits of episode 26, the last episode.

In episode 5, when Midori reveals herself as a HiME champion of justice, she wears the uniform of the Lindenbaum restuarant...including her nametag on her waist.

In episode 16, the songs featured during the Karaoke are actual character image songs as follows in order of appearance: "Mizube no Hana" (Natsuki's image song - INS1), "Kokoro no Tsurugi" (Mikoto's image song - INS2) and "Itoshisa no Kousaten" (Mai's image song - INS3). "Suishou no Mamori" is the name of the school song which Nagi was doing a terrible job karaokeing.